Air Force orders 80 F-15X Strike Eagles. No it's not pre-2001 and although Top Gun may be getting a new version/reboot with Maverick back in the picture the order is not an error or mistake the Military has put an order in for 80 F15 fighter jets to be built. This is a 45 year old plane so some folks really liked it and are impressed by its capabilities but its generation is way past, in fact If I had been an Air Force pilot, or could have been, it would have most likely been the plane I would have been able to fly. I wish I could have been a pilot and taken that road but that's another story so regarding the plane It's that old, but it's also that good and it (the F15 Strike Eagle) has never been defeated by an adversary in combat.
Maybe I am one of the few who finds stories like this fascinating and interesting but I admit I do. Here a, notably, exceptional, capable, and successful fourth generation fighter plane may be getting a new rebirth along with the Boeing factory having to get their F15 line back up and going again. All this long after the Fifth generation fighters have been in development, and produced, such as the F22 Raptor and the newest stealth F35. Now I'm not really super surprised that the Military is going back to a proven exceptional fighter plane that held its own with all others but what surprises me is that they chose the F15 over the F18. From what I've been told the F18 is even more of a formidable plane with dogfighting but because the F15 has a speed advantage and the ability to carry munitions that the F18 can't the F18 has may have lost out to the older F15. The Military still has the F16 Falcon even more agile than the F18 and F15 and for an air superiority fighter has no equal in our inventory unless it's potentially the F22 or F35. So the differences that favor the F15 and give it abilities that the newer F18 doesn't have along with a much cheaper cost than the F22 and F35 could be the decision maker.
The crazy thing is most of the pilots that are super familiar with the F15s are most likely all retired or way off the flying line. New pilots will have to be trained just fly it but what a testimony to the F15 that it would win out over the F18 and Fifth generation stealth fighters.