F-15 ACTIVE Test Plane (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The F-15 ACTIVE is a modified version of the first F-15 Eagle fighter which was ever delivered.   It's on loan to NASA from the USAF for use as a testbed for advanced aircraft technologies like canards and vectored thrust.

It was hoped that these features would result in aircraft which could take off in shorter distances and therefore operate from air bases in Europe or elsewhere which had been damaged by enemy action.   The new technologies were certainly successfully, allowing the F-15 ACTIVE and its earlier incarnation the F-15 S/MTD to take off at speeds as low as 42 mph, and to land in only 1650 feet, compared to the 7500 feet of a conventional F-15.   The vectored thrust feature was used on the F-22 Raptor, butAmerican military aircraft designers decided not to use canards, leaving those for European fighter aircraft like the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale and Saab Gripen.