Number 8: McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle
The F-15 has been claimed to be one of the most successful aircraft ever built and is still in service with the US Air Force. The Eagle’s twin-engine and thrust-to-weight ratio of almost 1:1 can propel the 18,000 kg aircraft to more than 2.5 times the speed of sound. It was introduced in 1976 and will continue to be a part of the air force beyond 2025. There has almost 1200 F-15s built and it has been exported to among others Japan, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The current plan is to keep producing them until 2019. It was first designed as an air-superiority aircraft but later the F-15E Strike Eagle was built, a Air-to-Ground derivative. The F-15 can load a variety of Sparrow, Sidewinder, 120-AMRAAM, drop bombs ( for instance Mark 84 or 82) or external fuel tanks on its 11 hardpoints. Together with its 20 mm M61A1 Vulcan gun it is no surprise that this buster has over 100 confirmed aerial combat victories. By the way a lot of visitors are interested in flying the F-15 – so we wrote a small article about that topic
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