Early german Eagles

[ValAstur]

At the end of the 1970's, the german air force (Luftwaffe) became more and more worried about the capabilities of the soviet aircraft, with the MiG-21 and 23 already being very manouverable fighters, capable of beating the Phan in a dogfight. Since the Luftwaffe did not use BVR-armament, the focus lied on manouverable and capable aircraft for air superiority achievement. The Tornado was not suitable for this task. The appearance of the MiG-29, though being in a prototype state of development, shocked the western allies. Germany, being the first line of defense in Europe, asked for the possibility of acquiring the F-15A for the primary role of air defense with a secondary focus on ground attack.

After ten months of negotiations with SecDef Harold Brown of the Carter Administration, the Luftwaffe received the first aircraft in 1978. The Sparrow stations at the belly got reworked by Dornier (with the permission of MDD), enabling the possibility of using them with lighter bombs for a higher tactical field value. The adaptable clamp system, developed and outfitted by Dornier, made it possible to load several bomb types incl. LGB. For security reasons, top speed and G-Load had to be reduced as long as the weapons were attached to the fuselage. This measure had to be adopted after an accident, where a modified Eagle lost a GBU-12B during a High-G-Turn on a test flight. The impacting LGB was not armed and did not cause major damage since it went down in a landscape with dense forest, but showed the limits of the modification.

The F-15A got handed over to the Luftwaffe after modification in 1979, renamed F-15F.

 

McDonnell Douglas F-15F Eagle, Jagdbombergeschwader 32, 1979

 

With a CAS-loadout

 

With a possible loadout for striking missions

 

Credits go to Geary for the templates I used and to ravenclaw for some of the stencils applied to this skin.