F-15 vs F-35: Which Fighter Is Better, and Why the Air Force Is Buying Both

How we compare the F-15 and the F-35

The F-15 is not one airplane. The F-15C Eagle is the 1970s air-superiority fighter now leaving service, the two-seat F-15E Strike Eagle is its strike version, and the F-15EX Eagle II is the new-build jet the Air Force is buying today.

So the live question in 2026 is the F-15EX against the F-35A, because the Air Force is paying for both. We rank them on four measures: who sees and shoots first, speed and payload, cost and readiness, and combat record.

Where published figures differ, we name the variant they apply to. Full specifications for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle sit in our aircraft database.

Where the F-35 wins

Stealth decides who shoots first

The F-15 has no stealth. It carries its missiles and bombs on the outside of the airframe, and its shape was never chosen to hide it from radar.

The F-35 carries its weapons in two internal bays, each with two weapon stations, so a combat load does not spoil its low radar signature. That puts it among the true stealth fighter jets, a full generation ahead of the Eagle.

Stealth costs payload. For missions that do not need it, the F-35 can also load six external stations, but then it gives up the advantage it was built around. We explain that trade in our guide to the five generations of fighter planes.

A cockpit that builds the picture for the pilot

The F-35’s sensors were designed to work as one system. Its AN/APG-81 radar can track several targets while scanning at ranges beyond 80 nautical miles (92 miles).

Six infrared sensors in the Distributed Aperture System track targets and warn of approaching missiles all around the aircraft. The helmet display puts flight and combat information on the visor, wherever the pilot is looking.

The F-15EX answers with a modern AESA radar, the AN/APG-82, and the EPAWSS electronic warfare suite. Those are strong fourth-generation sensors, but they sit on an airframe that enemy radars can still see.

Exercise results that favor the stealth jet

At its first Red Flag exercise, held at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, in early 2017, the F-35A posted what the Air Force called a 20-to-1 kill ratio against the aggressors. Lt. Gen. Jerry Harris, vice commander of Air Combat Command, gave that figure in testimony.

Read it with care. F-22 Raptors flew alongside the F-35s throughout the exercise, and the rules of engagement were never published.

Where the F-15 wins

Speed: Mach 2.5 against Mach 1.6

The Eagle is the faster jet by a wide margin. The Air Force’s fact sheet lists the F-15 at 1,875 mph (3,020 km/h), a Mach 2-class jet, and Air & Space Forces Magazine gives the F-15EX a top speed of Mach 2.5.

The F-35A is listed at Mach 1.6, about 1,200 mph (1,930 km/h). The Eagle has two engines, each rated at 23,450 pounds of thrust on the C and D models, while the F-35A has one, rated at 43,000 pounds.

For how both rank across the field, see our list of the fastest fighter jets.

Payload: 29,500 pounds and 12 missiles

The F-15EX can carry 29,500 pounds (13,400 kg) of weapons. That includes up to 12 AIM-9 Sidewinder or AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, or up to 24 air-to-ground munitions.

The F-35A’s payload is 18,000 pounds (8,160 kg), and most of it has to hang on external stations. Kept inside for stealth, its load fits on four weapon stations, so in a stealthy fight it runs out of missiles long before an F-15EX would.

Cheaper to fly, if it is the new one

The Pentagon’s fiscal 2026 reimbursement rates, the hourly price charged to other Defense Department users, put the F-35A at $18,600 per flight hour. The F-15EX is $17,321, the cheapest of the four jets in this comparison.

The older Eagles cost far more. The F-15E Strike Eagle is billed at $29,992 an hour and the F-15C at $35,468, up from $24,566 a year earlier.

To buy, the two are close. The F-35A’s average flyaway cost rose to $92 million in production Lots 18 and 19, and a 2023 Air Force acquisition report put the F-15EX at $93.95 million, a broader program measure. We cover the rise in how the F-35A climbed back to $92 million.

More often ready, and built to last longer

In fiscal 2024 the F-35A was mission capable 51.5 percent of the time, close to the F-15C’s 52.9 percent. The F-15EX posted 83.13 percent, from a fleet of just eight aircraft at the time.

A June 2026 Government Accountability Office report found the F-35 picture has worsened since. Only 28.5 percent of F-35As could perform all their missions in 2025, against an Air Force goal of 65 percent.

The airframes age differently, too. The F-35 is designed for 8,000 flight hours, while the F-15EX airframe is rated for 20,000.

A combat record the F-35 cannot match yet

The F-15 has a combined air-to-air record of 104 kills and no losses, a tally counted through 2008. In the 1991 Gulf War, US Air Force F-15Cs scored 34 of the service’s 37 air-to-air victories.

The family is still adding to it. On March 2, 2026, Qatari F-15QAs, a close relative of the F-15EX, scored their first kills, against Iranian Su-24s.

The F-35 flew its first combat missions with Israel in 2018 and scored its first kill of a crewed aircraft in 2026. On air-to-air results alone, the Eagle is decades ahead.

F-15 vs F-35 size

The F-15 is the bigger jet in every dimension. It is 63.8 feet (19.4 m) long with a 42.8-foot (13 m) wingspan, against 51 feet (15.7 m) and 35 feet (10.7 m) for the F-35A.

It also stands taller, at 18.5 feet (5.6 m) to the F-35A’s 14 feet (4.4 m). The full side-by-side dimensions are in the database comparison at the top of this page.

Weight is closer than size suggests. The Air Force lists the F-15C/D’s maximum takeoff weight at 68,000 pounds (30,800 kg) and the F-35A’s in the 70,000-pound class, while the F-15EX goes to 81,000 pounds (36,700 kg).

The F-35A packs much of that weight as internal fuel: 18,498 pounds (8,390 kg), enough for more than 1,350 miles (2,170 km) without refueling.

F-15 vs F-35 in a dogfight

The two have met many times in training, and the Eagle does not always lose. In a 2018 interview at Kadena Air Base, Japan, F-15 pilot Capt. Brock McGehee of the 44th Fighter Squadron was asked whether an F-15 can beat an F-35 in a dogfight.

“I mean, sometimes,” he said, adding that every aircraft loses sometimes. He also called the F-35 an “extremely capable” air-to-air fighter, and said it was “kind of scary a little bit to fly around in the dark with an invisible airplane that’s around you somewhere.”

Up close, the Eagle’s strength is raw performance. It was designed to turn at up to 9 g without losing airspeed and to climb to 30,000 feet (9,100 m) in about a minute.

An early F-35 lost a 2015 test dogfight to an F-16, a matchup we cover in our F-35 vs F-16 comparison. The Pentagon said that jet was limited to 5.5 g and lacked its stealth coating and helmet display.

The F-35 would rather never get that close. Its design aims to shoot from beyond visual range before an F-15 pilot knows it is there, which is what the Red Flag results reflect.

Why the Air Force is buying both

The F-15EX was bought to replace worn-out F-15C/Ds, and its job keeps growing. In April 2026 the Air Force more than doubled its planned F-15EX fleet, from 129 to 267, with about 25 in its inventory at the time.

The new jets are meant to replace aging F-15C/Ds, the A-10 and eventually the F-15E. The fiscal 2027 budget request buys 62 fighters: 38 F-35As and 24 F-15EXs.

The F-35A is still the bigger buy and the jet meant to go into heavily defended airspace. The F-15EX is the cheaper one to fly and keep ready, and it carries more.

Both are feeding a US Air Force fighter fleet that has dropped below the size Congress requires. More than 1,340 F-35s had been built by August 2026.

The F-35 still has loud critics. In November 2024 Elon Musk wrote that “some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35,” and called its design “broken at the requirements level.”

How many F-15s have been shot down?

None by an enemy fighter, on the public record. The air-superiority F-15A to D models have no recorded losses to enemy action.

The two-seat Strike Eagle has been shot down from the ground. Two F-15Es were lost to Iraqi ground fire in the 1991 Gulf War, and on April 3, 2026, one was brought down over Iran by what President Trump described as a shoulder-fired missile.

Both crew survived. The pilot was rescued within hours, and the weapon systems officer was recovered on April 5 after evading capture in the Zagros Mountains.

Iran first claimed the jet was an F-35. The wreckage carried the markings of an F-15E from the 494th Fighter Squadron at RAF Lakenheath, England.

Three more F-15Es were shot down over Kuwait on March 2, 2026, in an apparent friendly-fire incident involving Kuwaiti air defenses. All six crew were recovered.

Strike Eagles have been hit on the ground as well. An Iranian missile strike on a US base in Jordan on September 8, 2026 lightly damaged about eight of them, and they were judged serviceable.

Which fighter jet can beat the F-35?

None has been shown to in combat, as of September 2026. Iran has claimed F-35 kills twice this year, and neither claim has held up.

The April 3 “F-35” was the F-15E above. On July 30 the IRGC said its missiles had destroyed three F-35s at a base in Jordan, and the US military replied that “no US aircraft were destroyed or damaged in recent attempted Iranian attacks.”

Its closest air-to-air rivals are China’s Chengdu J-20 and America’s own F-22 Raptor. We compare those pairings in our F-35 vs J-20 and F-22 vs F-35 comparisons.

The verdict

If one jet had to fight its way into defended airspace and come home, take the F-35. It sees first, shoots first and hides its weapons, and nothing on an F-15 can change that.

If you need speed, payload and a jet that is ready to fly, the F-15 makes a case the F-35 cannot. The F-15EX carries three times the stealthy F-35’s missile load, costs less per hour, and has an airframe rated to last more than twice as long.

That is why the Air Force stopped treating them as rivals. For the Eagle against the Raptor, see our F-15 vs F-22 comparison, and for the wider field, our ranking of the best fighter jets in the world.