Design
The F-15 had a revised center pod with pilot and camera operator seated in tandem under a single bubble canopy. The first XP-61E, from which the first XF-15 was converted, had the canopy hinged to the side, while all subsequent XF-15 and production F-15 employed a sliding canopy. The aircraft's six cameras were placed in an elongated nose, replacing the XP-61Es four guns. Production F-15A were powered by the same turbosupercharged R-2800-73 engines as the P-61C. The aircraft had a takeoff weight of 32,145 lb (14,580 kg) and a top speed of 440 mph (382 kn, 708 km/h) at 33,000 ft (10,058 m). In the end, only 36 of the 175 ordered F-15As were built, and all were constructed from aircraft originally contracted to be built as P-61C.
The pilot was seated in the front, with the reconnaissance operator in the back. The back-seat occupant controlled the cameras and navigated the aircraft. However, the rear seat of the F-15A was fitted with a set of rudimentary flying controls, which made it possible for the reconnaissance operator to relieve the pilot if needed. Both crew members were rated pilots and both were trained in the reconnaissance task, so they usually alternated position on each flight.
Read more about this topic: Northrop F-15 Reporter
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (16131680)
“I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christs sake not black
nor white eitherand not polished!
Let it be weatheredlike a farm wagon”
—William Carlos Williams (18831963)
“What but design of darkness to appall?
If design govern in a thing so small.”
—Robert Frost (18741963)