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- I'm Andrea Themely and this is an F-15C fighter jet. [upbeat music]

The F-15 is a twin engine all weather air superiority platform that has the most impressive fuel ratio of any modern aerial fighter. 104 victories to zero losses in aerial combat.

I was an Air Force pilot for 23 years and I have over 3400 hours in high performance aircraft, including 1100 hours in F-15s, just like this one here. Today I'm gonna walk you through the most used features, emergency controls, weapons and defensive controls, customizable features, navigation and communication and backup systems and redundancies. Then I'll show you how they all work together to start the jet.

[soft music] There are over 250 buttons in the cockpit. But it was designed so that everything the pilot uses the most is right in front of them. Moving from top to bottom, the most important features are the HUD, which is the heads up display, the radio, the ADI which is the attitude directional indicator, the HSI, the horizontal situational indicator, the stick, the throttles, and the rudder pedals.

These large screens are powered off right now, because the information they display is classified. You have the vertical situation display, the multi purpose color display and the pad but we'll get back to these in a moment. 

Everything that's yellow and black on this aircraft is pretty much a switch you don't wanna have to use, for example, the ejection seat. When I pull 45 pounds of pressure on these ejection handles right there, and I move those levers up two inches, I am sitting on a catapult rocket, I'm gonna be sent straight out of the aircraft and I'll find myself 1.8 to 2.9 seconds later underneath a full parachute canopy.

Out of all of these controls here, there's actually one that we are prohibited from using and that is the VMAX switch down here on the left console. So it is actually safety wired shut and it is guarded closed, and it's a switch that we're not actually allowed to use. But if you were to use it, if you were to rip that safety wire off and unguard it, and turn that on, what it's gonna do is allow the engine to burn 22 degrees hotter, and it gives you about 2% more revolutions per minute. So it really just gives you a little bit of extra thrust if you need it in a combat situation.

So some of the other yellow and black switches, there's an emergency jettison switch. If you're in a thrust deficient situation where you really need to get all of the external stores off the aircraft, you would hit this button right here, and basically all of your fuel tanks, all of your weapons, anything that's on the aircraft will be jettisoned right away. If you've lost an engine and it's a high pressure altitude type scenario, and you really need that extra thrust, it's gonna reduce your drag and reduce your weight significantly.

This switch right here is an emergency jettison switch for the canopy. If for some reason I'm unable to open my canopy and say everything is engulfed in flames, I might just wanna blow that canopy off. And this switch right here, uses a little bit of pyrotechnics to do that. It is a one time actuation switch and you don't wanna have to do it, if you really don't need to.

All right, this switch is for the hook, there is a tail hook in the F-15, and even though we don't land on carriers, we might need that hook to be able to catch an approach in cable in case it was a brake problem or a gear problem that necessitated it. Once they put the hook down, there are cables strung across the approach end of a lot of fighter runways. They'll be able to actually take that cable and not have to use the full length of the runway and the cable will help stop the aircraft in the event of any gear problem or brake problem.

The F-15 has a highly sophisticated weapons and defensive system. It's controlled with HOTAS. HOTAS stands for hands on throttle and stick and pretty much everything that the pilot needs to manipulate and control the radar and the weapons are right here on the pilots throttle and stick. on the throttles all of these switches are different shapes. And that allows the pilot the ability to feel what they're doing without having to look down.

Right here, there's a little pinky switch that deploys countermeasures. So the aircraft carries both flares and chaff. So flares are designed to make a big IR heat signature and try to deflect any heat seeking missile away from the aircraft. The chaff is basically bundles of aluminum and essentially what it does is it blooms into a big radar signature and tries to get the aircraft's radar signature to be able to be hidden within that chaff bloom.

On the right console is this guarded red switch. That's the flare jettison switch. If the pilot needs to, they can unguard this switch and jettison all their flares at the same time. The only time I can really think that you'd need to use this is if you were to do a gear up landing and you don't wanna have any extra pyrotechnics on the bottom of your aircraft to cause any other secondary fires.

On the control stick, you have seven different switches. Starting at the very left here, this is the pickle switch. It's a weapons employment switch. It's called the pickle switch because in World War II, the B-17 bomb sight was so accurate it was said to be able to hit pickles out of a pickle barrel, hence the name pickle switch and it has stuck for 75 years.

Moving over here, this is called the castle switch, it looks exactly like a turrets of a castle, so that's why they've named it that. This switch has multifunctionality depending on right, left, side to side, straight up and down and it does various things with your displays to be able to put whatever the pilot needs when they want it on the proper display.

This switch is a trim button here. The trim button is found on every aircraft everywhere. The faster you get, the more pressure the pilot feels on the aircraft to be able to maintain level flight. And that trim button actually just takes that pressure off and allows the pilots to take their hands off the controls and the aircraft will maintain level flight.

The other button that's really important is the trigger right here in the front of the stick. The trigger is what actually fires the gun. Each aircraft is loaded with 940 rounds of 20 millimeter ammunition and you can fire it at about 6000 rounds per minute. That equates to just under 10 seconds worth of gun. Usually you squeeze the trigger for about two to three seconds at a time so that you don't jam the gun itself.

[soft music] A lot of the buttons and dials in the cockpit are there to help the pilot customize different features of the jet. For example, these dials and switches adjust the HUDs brightness. Everything that pilot needs is right here on the heads up display in front of them. So they're able to see if they're heading, they're out to their airspeed, various target parameters, radar data.

It's also contained on the helmet mounted cueing system. So there's a reticle in front of their eye that has all of the same information that HUD has. And that way they're able to move their head around from side to side and still take that information with them no matter where they're looking.

This panel here allows the pilot to adjust the temperature of the cabin to their own personal preference. In addition, that same pneumatic air that changes the temperature in the cabin is also used to pressurize the cabin. It pressurizes the canopy seals and then keeps the actual pressure of the cabin at a more comfortable level. The aircraft can go all the way up to 50,000 feet but the pilot will never experience an actual 50,000 foot cabin.

On any commercial airliner, the cabin is always pressurized for passenger comfort. As soon as you go up in altitude, all the gases in your body to include those in your teeth and your bones and your joints and your stomach are all gonna expand and they will cause a lot more pain unless you keep that pressure altitude a little bit lower. Even when a pilot is up at 50,000 feet, he or she will only feel like they're at a lot lower cabin pressure around 18,000 feet.

These switches down here on the left or right consoles are pretty much used only about five to 10% of the time, usually on the ground before takeoff and after landing.

This button hidden in the back right here is to test the G-suit before flight and make sure it's hooked up correctly. Every pilot wears what's called a G-suit to help counteract the extreme pressures that they feel when they're pulling G's. If you're not used to the G forces, it's easy to pass out even when you experience four or five G's. If you've ever been on the bottom of a loop of a roller coaster and you start seeing grayed out vision, where you don't have 100% of your color vision, that's when you're starting to feel those G forces already and the blood leaving your brain. The G-suit is designed to squeeze against your own muscles and remind you to do an anti G straining maneuver. The straining maneuver helps to counteract the G forces by bringing blood back up to your brain. 

Here the pilot can adjust the rudder pedals to however they need them. People with longer legs can push them a little farther. And of course, people like me with shorter legs have to pull them a little bit closer to them.

This is the pilots air conditioner. This is the only way that the pilot stays cool in summer. That is probably the most antiquated part of this aircraft. This is definitely the pilots best friend in the summer.

There are a number of instruments that the pilot uses to navigate and also communicate with other aircraft. These include multiple radios, a transponder, and an embedded GPS and inertial navigation system.

The pilot has multiple radios so they're able to talk multiple external agencies at once, in addition to being able to have intra flight communications with their wingman. This is your primary control for your radio one, the aircraft has three radios and this radio here it can be turned on with this switch right there and you can control it in either a preset channel or manual frequency that can be dialed right in here from the pilot.

So even though the F-15 is a single seat aircraft, the F-15 pilot is never truly flying by themselves. The F-15 flies in formation. So you're either in a two ship or a four ship or an eight ship and you're gonna employ all together and you're able to see each other and see what each other are targeting and locked on to right here on this multi purpose color display.

These large screens are powered off right now because the information they display is classified. The MPCD or multi purpose color display, is gonna give the pilot a moving map and what this is gonna do is display the pilots own ship position with respect to everything else out there to include their own formation members, the enemy targets, the enemy fighters, enemy airfields, anything that's out there. The pad on the top right side is gonna be an interchangeable display that allows the pilot to put targeting pod information, radar warning receiver information or engine management display information about the current parameters of the engines.

Over here is your vertical situation display. What this does is shows you every single thing that the aircraft radar can see. You would turn these switches on to increase the intensity of it. And you're gonna be able to see all the targets that the radar is painting.

The aircraft has an embedded GPS with inertial navigation system. The GPS is just like the one you have in your car. The INS, inertial navigation system is a ring laser gyro system that essentially allows the aircraft to know where it is with respect to any point on the earth at any time and it's self contained. So that is also not susceptible to jamming.

Most important information will be available to the pilot in their helmet mounted cueing system and their heads up display. But if those things fail, they have another way to read them on their primary flight displays below. So down here you've got some standby instruments.

You have your stand by airspeed, your standby attitude direction indicator and your standby altimeter a little bit further down. Your standby attitude direction indicator is powered by its own individual battery, and it will last for nine minutes after you lose power. The standby airspeed and the standby altimeter don't require any power to operate and all they use is inputs from the pitot static system, the air pressure going in the pitot tube, and the static pressure from the static pressure ports to provide information to the pilot.

So if you lose all your avionics, you're not gonna be any good in a fight, you're not gonna actually be in combat anymore. All you wanna do is land that aircraft where you need to land it. And so to be able to find an alternate airfield or a place to land you need to have some navigation capability and some ability to fly that aircraft there. 

Over here, you've got your hydraulic gauges, the hydraulic systems got basically three independent hydraulic systems, the PC1, PC2, and the utility hydraulic system. And they're all independent and redundant and that's on purpose so that you've got plenty of hydraulic power in the event of an emergency.

Down here is your fuel quantity gauge. The pilot is able to rotate this knob and tell exactly how much fuel is in each one of these tanks, depending on where they have this pre positioned. We refer to these older gauges as steam driven gauges in most modern cockpits, you see more glass and LCD displays, and that's why they're referred to as glass cockpits. So you have to remember that this aircraft first became operational in 1976. So there are a lot of gauges and switches that are still the original ones that came with the aircraft. As technology has evolved, the Air Force has put money into upgrading a lot of these sensors and switches and dials but there are some of them that have remained just based on limitations with funding.

So now that we've gone over everything in the cockpit, here's how it all works together to actually start the jet. First, the pilot has to turn the engine master switches on which turns the fuel pumps on and enables JFS or jet fuel starter to couple to the engine.

Normally a jet engine which is a turbine engine, is gonna need air flowing over the compressor blades to continually keep that turbine running. Because you don't have that air flowing on the ground, the F-15 needs a separate little small motor called the jet fuel starter or JFS to be able to power those engines and turn those turbines.

Once the engine gets to 18% RPM, the pilots going to add fuel by pushing the throttle to the idle position, and it's gonna complete the start sequence on its own. Once it gets to around 50% RPM, that JFS will automatically decouple and be ready to start the second engine.

So there you have it, I've shown you the most important features of the F-15. So while all of this looks very overwhelming, the engineers really did have everything in mind for the pilot to be able to ergonomically control everything that they needed at the appropriate time. The men and women that fly this aircraft spend a lot of time in the air and in a simulator practicing. A lot of repetition and a lot of drive to ensure that they can be the best they can be at employing this aircraft.

Hopefully you learned a little bit about the F-15C. I'd like to thank Fresno Air National Guard and the 144th Fighter Wing for allowing us to be here today. [soft music]