Vraciu, if you spent less time trying to tear into the F-35 and going out of your way to try to coin phrases for how it's a failure and actually focused on facts, you'd find life is a lot more interesting and less filled with vitriol.
For example:
You're trying to show how great the F-15 is with range while decrying the F-35 as unable to fight or maneuver against anything. Quite the double standard. Hypocritical, you might say. The F-15 standard combat package is 2 giant weighty fuel tanks. MAX range, which is about 3000 nm, is only accomplished on an unarmed ferry configuration with the 3 largest external fuel tanks you can fit as well as 2 CFTs on top of that. You won't be fighting anything, anywhere, if you can't pull more than 1.5 Gs because you're overloaded. That's not a combat range. That's not a dogfight range.
F-15C combat range on internal fuel is about 1000 nm. At max speed of 1500 mph internal + CFTs that drops to about 590 miles before you're out of gas. That's according to NASA numbers on fuel consumption at 50,000 feet. F-35A had some early problems reported about not quite making 590 nm range -- with internal fuel only and 2000 lbs or bombs onboard. Depending on the report you read, a pure a2a configuration without 2x 1000 lb bombs brings that up to about 700 + nm. The F-35C CV variant has about 40% on top of that as well. That's not counting external fuel tanks -- which would be less draggy and more stealthy than the configuration on the F-15C. That's also not counting mid-flight refueling.
Pause for a minute. Examine how the F-15 is even used in this day and age. Hint: It's not as a cold-war MiG-killer. It's not as a dogfighter. The majority of its combat, anywhere, is as an overloaded bomb truck because the F-16s don't cut it at range. It's not dogfighting with a dozen Mk82s slung on CFTs. So... What are you trying to compare, even? The bomb trucks can't even operate on day 1 because they'll be shot out of the sky. The Air Force has better bomb trucks in this day and age with B-52s and B-1s being able to drop smart bombs from altitude with the same accuracy but releasing from way beyond the danger zone. Despite the original INTENT of the design, when you actually need to send them into combat with bombs you need to escort them, you need to clear the zone before they can even hope to go in, and they are slow and lumbering, drop their bombs, and get out. Funny how the F-16 devolved into that role as well.
In short, the F-35 doesn't compare to the F-15 if you look at the F-15 with rose colored glasses and ignore how the F-15 is actually used in real-world combat situations. When you look at what the Air Force needs to do when they use the F-15s, the F-35 can get in there safer, better, undetected, and the big kicker is the sensor fusion. You can't retrofit that. And they do it without escorts. In any condition you wish to look at Air Superiority, the F-15 doesn't hold up to is 1972 hype. You could have a single flight of F-35s with sensor fusion showing a crystal clear image of the area of engagement for hundreds of miles and have a ship-based G2A missile take anything out without even having to send the F-35s in. Or, you can send the F-35s in and they'll pick off anything from range. OR you can have them go in, and if they need to they can turn equal or better to F-16s and F/A-18s in use now, which are essentially the standard for turn fighting in this day and age. Even as recently as last June in 8 different operational combat tests the F-35 went up against F-15Es and was never spotted once when they attempted to locate the F-35s.
You may think its hip to hate on the F-35 "just because," or for political reasons, but look at it objectively. If you want to compare actual contenders, don't get all sentimental about the past. The past generations of planes don't cut it. Not even slightly updated. The reason is the recent technological leaps have been exponentional, not linear. There's no hope they can be brought up to speed, ever. To suggest otherwise and go backwards is just denying progress. Instead if you want to talk about potential replacements or alternatives, drop the F-15SE or F/A-18 nonsense. They're just fluff from giant industries that are selling a product. Look at the EF Typhoon or even the Rafale, though the Raf isn't as much of a challenger and the Typhoon has some political, economical, and developmental problems of its own (Gee... kind of like the F-35).
