Flying the F-15EX: A Boeing test pilot’s view

Above: Boeing test pilot Matt “Phat” Giese with an F-15EX. (Jamie Hunter photo)

In partnership with Boeing, the industry magazine “The War Zone” recently published a Q&A with Matt “Phat” Giese, Boeing Test & Evaluation chief F-15 experimental test pilot, about key technical enhancements to the iconic F-15 fighter that have given rise to a “new breed of Eagle.”Many of those enhancements were displayed at the Dubai Airshow in the United Arab Emirates last year during a flight demonstration that Giese helped plan and coordinate. Read insights from Giese in the excerpt below.

Matt “Phat” Giese, Boeing Test & Evaluation (BT&E) chief F-15 experimental test pilot, performs a flying demonstration in an Advanced F-15 at the Spirit of St. Louis Air Show earlier this month. In the backseat is BT&E Experimental Weapon System Operator Mike “Houdini” Quintini. (Boeing photo)

About the jet’s new digital fly-by-wire flight control system:Giese: “The advanced fly-by-wire flight control system allows the pilot to focus less on flying the airplane and more on executing the tactical mission. The design is such that the pilot can set the flightpath marker on the horizon and the jet flies straight. We have a digital rig on the jet, so it’s never going to change and it means the pilot and Weapons Systems Officer [WSO] can focus on displays, on the sensor management, and actually being tacticians and battlespace managers, as opposed to worrying about how the jet is flying.”On the system’s reliability:“The other thing fly-by-wire gives is redundancy and reliability. In a six-year flight-test program out at Palmdale [California] on the advanced fly-by-wire flight controls, we attempted to spin this airplane and we were just unsuccessful even with lateral asymmetry [loading heavy stores on just one side of the jet]. …“And it’s just too good, it’s too redundant. It’s not going to depart from controlled flight.”

A head-on view of an F-15EX. (Boeing photo)

Comparing the acceleration and high-end speed of a “clean” versus heavily loaded F-15:“The General Electric F110-GE-129 engines combined with the F-15’s unique air induction system with the movable inlet ramp allows us to get to those top-end speeds — just under Mach 2.5, actually Mach 2.497 — that has been advertised and that we demonstrated in the fly-by-wire flight control system development program. The acceleration to get to those high-end speeds is unmatched. …“We see very good acceleration in both a clean jet or a jet that has conformal fuel tanks fitted. What’s probably equally as impressive is that you can take a clean jet and show those high-end speeds, and you can take a jet and put 12 missiles on it for example and still get close to those high-end speeds. …“You can still fly all those maneuvers that you saw in Dubai last year with a loaded aircraft. To me, that’s an impressive show of capability because the clean demo is interesting to watch and it definitely shows fly-by-wire angle-of-attack capability and the power of the motors, but to demonstrate that with munitions on board is pretty darn cool.”About the large area display featured on the F-15QA and F-15EX:“It’s a high-resolution display and it’s touch screen. It’s also similar to the type of devices that pilots use nowadays to manage systems on an airplane. It allows the pilot and WSO to focus on very detailed pictures and large color displays and manage those advanced systems on the jet, and that provides a greater combat capability.Each cockpit can set up their own displays, their own colors, their own touch zones, how they want things to be displayed. All these young aviators going through pilot training right now, this is what they understand, this is what they’re used to.”

The front cockpit of an Advanced F-15, which features a large area display. (Boeing photo)

More on the flight demo in Dubai and what it was designed to achieve:“A lot of air shows have demonstration teams like the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds or the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, and those demonstrations show teamwork and formation flying. With the Advanced F-15 we are all about demonstrating combat capability, that’s how we designed the demo — to be low and loud, and close to the crowd in order to get us maximum attention.“We specifically designed our demonstration to stay in a very tight air-show display box to show how we can move, how we maneuver with high AoA [Angle-of-Attack] capability, and show the power of the two F110-GE-129 engines. These are the major components on today’s Advanced F-15.”

An F-15QA seen during a flight demonstration. (Boeing photo)

On developing F-15 systems and capabilities of the future:“We have some of the most advanced labs anywhere in the world. Everything the F-15EX does today was first tested in our labs and simulators. As we move into the digital future, and our fighters accept the apps-based solutions of the future — our labs and software teams only become more important to the capabilities of this jet.”