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Senior Member
The trouble is "Greatest" is a purely objective term. It has no particular metric. But then I guess that makes for a more entertaining thread as you have to justify your selections.
For me, "greatest" would equate to "had the most impact in it's arena of conflict and amongst it's peers".
Therefore the Sea Harrier. Without which the Argentine flag would be flying above the Falklands. Combined with, for the Yankophiles, the superb AIM-9L.
Not even the much-lauded Spitfire can claim to have single-handedly won such a decisive air battle, the Hurricane more than shouldering it's fair share of responsibility during the Battle of Britain.
Although it would be my second choice
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Senior Member
The American Dream baby! And don't forget that million dollar elbow 
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Senior Member
Nope... The 100:0 kill/death ratio for the F15 is true, albeit a bit modest, because there were actually more than 100 A2A kills scored by pilots of this fighter. 100 is just a safe estimate.
However, that is more due to relative pilot skill rather than pure technological prowess. If the US, Israel, or any other F15 user had been in serious combat with any really well trained, well organized air force, the outcome would not have been the same. There hasn't really been a major clash of comparable air forces in a long time.
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Senior Member
Ok technically they were 2 seperate entities but how can you not include Johny Socko and his Giant Robot? I mean c'mon. Rockets shot out of his fingers! Thats just biatch n cool.
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Senior Member
Agreed. If the F-15 (flown by US, Japanese, or Israeli pilots) went up against the best available opposing air force flying a contemporary fighter, the ratio would probably go down to something like 50:1. That's how much better it was than anything flying for the first ten-fifteen years after its introduction in 1971 or '72.
Add in the intense training its pilots got during the Cold War, and what the Abrams did to the T-72 in the first Desert War wouldn't look nearly so much like clubbing baby seals...
cheers
horseback
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Senior Member
50:1 would VASTLY over-estimate radar and missile effectiveness against the best equipped contemporary aircraft and countermeasures.
And the F15 had it's behind handed to it in mock dogfights with my contender, above, in the early eighties
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Senior Member
Eurofighter has owned the F-15C in mock dogfights in the UK... but that don't mean shiz.
1 vs. 1 turn fights are not representtitive of today's combat.
The F-15C is a great High altitude Interceptor, combined with excellent training of the USAAF pilots and the best support systems in the world, like AWACS, maintenance etc.
This combination creates an ultimate fighting force. 
The F-22 blows all competition away with its stealth capabilities, and state of the art avionics, and Thrust vectoring.
Go against a squad of F-22s in BVR combat and you will have an Aim-120C in your face before you can say, "wtf, stealth n00b".
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Senior Member
With BVR, the F-15 doesn't need to dogfight. Which is why it's never been shot down.
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Member
F-15......F-22......well i have to agree on all what have been said, but in my opinion the plane that should be greatest is one that have had to comply to multi role tasks, and have pressed what the plane was made to do from the start and what it is used to today....My vote is for the F-16 fighting falcon. Same age as the F-15, but have been used in more roles and atleast in all the same theaters as the F-15
F-16 is the most used and upgraded plane in service world wide, and they even have made the upgrades so it can be effective even in this "super" machine time age and atleast 5 more years....
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Senior Member