The Air Force fired back this week at rumors it plans to retire the fleet of F-15 Eagle fighters within ten years. The service said it had no plans to send nearly two hundred of the jets to the Boneyard in Arizona.

The flap started last week when the Director of the Air National Guard, responding to a question from Congress whether the Air Force would lose any unique capabilities if it were to retire the F-15s, said such plans were "pre-decisional." This set off a flurry of speculation, including here at Popular Mechanics.

But this week, Lt. Gen. Jerry Harris, Air Force deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, flatly told Congress, "We are not replacing (the F-15) at this time." Harris did admit the Air Force is conducting a cost analysis that compares using updated F-16s to perform the F-15's mission—an analysis he promised the Air Force would share with Congress before retiring any planes.

General Mike Holmes, the head of the Air Force's Air Combat Command, told reporters that in order to stay viable, each F-15 needs a $40 million center fuselage overhaul. That's a lot of money, especially considering that outgoing F-35 program lead General Chris Bogdan believes the Air Force's version of the F-35, the F-35A, will price out to about $80 million dollars a copy by 2019.

In other words, for approximately $80 million the Air Force can have one new F-35A or two refurbished F-15s. (The price of upgrading F-16s to the new F-16V standard is unknown.) Each brings different things to the table. The F-35A brings stealth, networking connectivity and in-flight collaborating and data sharing, and the latest technology in general. The F-15, on the other hand, is still a decent fighter and can be a pretty effective bomb and missile truck, providing up to sixteen AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, or air to ground ordnance.

The F-15 is still a fearsome weapon. In recent exercises paired with F-22s, the two planes achieved an amazing 41:1 kill ratio . Still, time marches on, and at some point it will be time to let the F-15 go.

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