Article Summary: The Israeli Air Force’s F-15I Ra’am is a highly customized variant of the F-15E, designed for long-range, precision strike missions. Equipped with the LANTIRN targeting system, APG-70 radar, and conformal fuel tanks, it enables Israel to conduct low-altitude, all-weather attacks with extended range.
Key Points #1 – The aircraft’s terrain mapping and infrared targeting enhance its ability to strike hidden threats while minimizing civilian casualties. Carrying up to 11 tons of munitions, including AMRAAM and Python-4 missiles, the F-15I is a formidable platform for counterterrorism and strategic deterrence.
Key Points #2 – Its combination of advanced sensors, weaponry, and range makes it a cornerstone of Israeli air superiority.
Israel’s F-15I Ra’am: The Fighter Jet Built for Precision Strikes
The upgrade and enhancement trajectory of the Israeli Air Force’s F-15I Ra’am has key parallels to the US Air Force’s long-standing initiatives to build upon the success of its F-15 Eagle. This aircraft has never been lost in combat.
Known to be among the fastest fighter jets ever to exist, traveling at Mach 2.25 up to Mach 2.5, the F-15E has in recent years received new EW, AESA radar, weapons and a paradigm-changing, high-speed computer called Advanced Display Core Processor (ADCP II) capable of performing as many as 87 billion functions per second.
These adaptations and improvements have led to the construction and deployment of the highly-regarded F-15EX 4th-generation “plus” aircraft reportedly capable of challenging 5th-generation platforms.
Much like the US variant, Israel’s F-15I is an almost entirely different plane that it was at its inception decades ago.
The F-15 airframe may date back to the 1980s, yet today’s jet could be understood as an almost entirely different aircraft.
Israel’s F-15I Ra’am Figther, Explained
The IAF’s F-15I Ra’am arrived in the late 1990s, and, much like the IDFs F-16i and F-35i, it has been configured with an entire suite of technologies added and developed for Israel. These amount to custom fighters and nothing like the U.S. Air Force flies today.
One of these is the LANTIRN system, which senses and laser-designates enemy targets.
A significant essay from Israeliweapons.com explains that the LATIRN pod can “acquire targets and lock guided munitions on them in both day and night time.”
The LATIRN can help maintain targeting in snowy, foggy, rainy conditions where line-of-sight is obscured. To accomplish this, the system incorporates both a navigation and guidance “pod,” which uses a FLIR (Forward-Looking Infrared) sensor and a terrain following radar.
“The FLIR sensor makes it possible to follow targets at long range, the laser marker is used with laser-guided munitions,” the essay explains. “The Ra’am’s advanced systems include an APG-70 radar with terrain mapping capability. The sharp picture that the APG-70 provides, regardless of weather conditions and light, makes it possible to locate targets that are otherwise very hard to find – i.e. missile batteries, tanks and structures – even under such adverse conditions as complete fog cover, heavy rain or moonless nights.”
Attacking Terrorists
In a tactical sense, this would likely enable lower-flying F-15s to track and destroy dismounted groups of terrorists in an asymmetrical type of combat, such as those known to exist in the Middle East.
Part of this ability to fly low is likely due to the apparent reality that the IAF does operate with air supremacy throughout the Middle East.
While Iran and other IDF enemies, such as Hamas, may operate some air defenses, they do not appear capable of stopping the IAF from achieving and maintaining air supremacy.
The integration of terrain mapping, precision targeting through LANTIRN, and the ability to attack at low altitudes would certainly prove highly critical in any kind of IAF attack on terrorist ground forces.
Terrain mapping would be needed given that terrorist groups such as Hamas specifically use terrain obscurants and geography to avoid being detected and targeted. Precision sensing for closer-in air-to-ground attacks would also be of critical importance, given that terrorist fighters very deliberately hide among civilian populations to use innocent people as human shields.
An ability to distinguish dismounted groups of fighters from nearby civilians would prove tactically effective and very important to the IDF, as it is a force that regularly confronts the challenge of needing to save Israeli lives from terrorist attacks with aggressive military action yet also take extensive measures to avoid or minimize the unwanted death of civilians.
F-15I Range & Attack
The IAF F-15i is also outfitted with conformal fuel tanks capable of significantly extending range and dwell time. This is significant tactical value given that the aircraft can carry as many as 11 tons of weapons, including bombs, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, and a 6-barrelled Vulcan 20mm cannon.
Among other weapons, the F-15i can fire AMRAAMs and Python-4 missiles.
F-15I Ra’am. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
As part of these enhancements, the F-15i can reportedly travel as far as 4,450km, a distance described as previously achieved only by bombers and unprecedented for a fighter jet.
“Its tremendous payload capacity, combined with its advanced systems, enable it to carry out depth attacks with a large weapons load, at long ranges, at low altitude, in all hours of the day and night and in any weather conditions,” Israelweapons.com describes.
F-15I. Image: Creative Commons.
About the Author: Kris Osborn
Kris Osborn is the Military Technology Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
