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originally posted by: boomer135
Something I learned about the strike eagle. An F-15E without its Conformal Fuel Tanks (CFT) strapped to the sides of it has a better power to weight ratio than a C model. The CFTs are removed as easily as removing any major ordinance they’re just hardly ever removed in practice because there’s no need for it to play the role of Air-to-Air fighter. Its actually a better air-to-air platform than a C when stripped of those CFTs and outfitted for air-to-air roles. This fact was kept under wraps for political reasons as the F-22 was being pushed through congress at the time and the Air Force didn’t want it to be popularly known that they already had an amazing Air-to-Air fighter with the E. To solidify the mentality of it not being an air-to-air platform, they moved all the FB-111 guys into the strike eagle from the start of the program to solidify its culture as a strike platform. Pretty interesting stuff really