I don’t think it matters who was first, the F-15C had AESA in 2000.
The article states that the F-15C equipped with AESA radar began operation in December 2000. The F-2 began operating in October 2000. So you can see that F-2 is 2 months earlier.
Boeing Delivers Final AESA-Equipped F-15 Aircraft to U.S. Air Force - Dec 20, 2000 (mediaroom.com)
Since I’m having to copy it again, the final APG-63(V)2 equipped F-15C was delivered in December 20, 2000, it was already within the 3WG inventory prior to that. Unless you want to missread it like Cotor and say that the first 3 were delivered on this date.
Good to hear that you dont think the F-15C is an aircraft and the AN/APG-63(V)2 is not an AESA radar.
Funny bit about this, the AN/APG-63(V)1 entered service in 2001 on the F-15s, so service date wise the AN/APG-63(V)2 was in service prior to the (V)1 even though it retains a subsequent mark.
U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagles Receiving Boeing APG-63(V)1 Radar Upgrade - Apr 2, 2001 (mediaroom.com)
1 Like
ur actually delusional
Cool good to see that you don’t refute the argument and resort to ad hominem.
its not an argument, You lost the argument with actual facts. So i dunno what ur getting at
You posted no sources while I posted two from Boeing’s own portfolio, the burden of proof is on you my guy, you’ve posted nothing to back up your claims.
Come back when you have actual citations that prove that the US did not take ownership of their 15 modified F-15Cs prior to receiving their final 3 on December 20th, 2000.
Just out of curiosity, do you have any info when the first was fitted?
Even early 2000 still sounds a bit later than the F-2 fitting the first AESA radar in 1995. Were there any operational tests with APG-63(V)2 on operational aircraft or only testing?
So far it sounds a lot like F-2 was the first operational fighter to mount AESA, while the F-15 was the first to do so in service.
That’s a tautology.
The first mention I recall of testing was 1988 for terrain mapping related developments.
Would have to pre-date December 20, 2000, which is the contract completion date for the 18 aircraft as the final delivery occurred here, by a fair amount given Raytheon would not be able to just make a radar and immediately hand it off to their contract owners without testing it.
The claim most commonly made of the J/APG-1 is that it is quote " It was the first series production AESA to be introduced on a military aircraft in service." We can argue the pedantics of “functional” vs “in service” vs “operational” all day, but the above is the claim that is most prominent which would put the F-15C just slightly before the F-2 under the pretense of the airframe being “in service”.
This also.
I’ve seen statements that the F-2 came into service in September, October, December and August of 2000 with all of said citations not really stating where that time frame comes from. To that same end functionally all other citations commonly just quote 2000 alone. There has to be a good chunk of actual dates given somewhere in some archive since this would be a rather momentous occasion in Japan, taking delivery of the first of their next generation fighters.
That and if we are going by testing only dates, would not the YF-22 predate both of the aircraft in question here as it’s first properly recorded flight was on September 29th 1990 with it’s ferry flight.
All i want is for us to actually get the MSIP variant so we have HMD
Personally i think its too early for AESA radars to come to the game though
Yes, but the V1 has been tested since the mid-1990s.
Anything in the Air Force’s inventory in or before 1999 is considered test service. This is almost the same as the XF-2, and is no different from the experimental aircraft. According to the article I provided, it says that AN/APG63(V)2 began operation in December 2000. This article is based on official news from Raytheon Corporation.Next, we can see that the first mass-produced F-2 was delivered in September 2000 and began operation in October.This shows that the F-2 began operations earlier.
http://www.clearing.mod.go.jp/hakusho_data/2001/column/frame/ak133003.htm
And we know this is not correct because the last 3 of the 18 aircraft completed modification in December. The article either means 63v2 reaches IOC in December of 2000 because it has outfitted an entire squadron, or is wrong. Either way, the F-2 did not reach squadron sized strength by December of 2000 so it still loses.
1 Like
Completing a renovation and starting operations are two different concepts.It is also wrong to say that he did not join the squadron. A temporary F-2 squadron was established in the 3rd Wing in October 2000.
You don’t know how any of this works.
Is it? Or is it just confusion about the use of “operational”? I’ll rephrase it
The F-2 was a fully combat capable aicraft mounting it in 1996, but not yet in service. The F-15 mounted it in 2000, and entered service vefore the F-2.
Was that mounted on a fully functional F-15 or just the radar? Those two are very different things. If it’s just the radar I’ll have to disappoint you here, since there were FS-X AESA radar prototypes before it was opened up for collaboration with other countries in 1986, such as a multi array AESA setup built for the Mitsubishi JF-210.
Though I guess if you do mean functional F-15s fitted with it in 1988 that is impressive.
I can agree with this somewhat. The F-15C was the first AESA fighter in service, if it was in service before September 2000. Though from what I understand APG-63(V)2 was still experimental, so J/APG-1 would still be the first serial production AESA fighter radar, though that is arguably splitting hairs.
Sadly things like this are very much normal when researching anything Japanese.
Depends when a functional radar was fitted on an equally functional airframe. For the F-2 that was on the fourth XF-2 prototype used for weapons testing in 1996, I’m not too familiar with the F-22 development, but if a prototype did mount AESA earlier that would make it the first.
Though once again you need to separate between tesing of an aircraft with AESA and just the radar itself, since those give very different results.
Just gib F-15C with AESA radar at this point. Then F-2A. Cause “wE Don’T CaRe abouT ThE yEar oF seRVicE”
Probably gaijin at some point
