its Paya Lebar Air Base — 142 Squadron
‘Gryphon’ and 149 Squadron ‘Shikra’.
The defense ministry’s responses to
media queries on the strength of its
F-15SG fleet have often been non-
committal but astute, such as one
such statement in August 2014: ‘The
Singapore Armed Forces bases our
procurement on the assessed long-
term defense needs, and the RSAF has
purchased sufficient F-15SGs to meet our
defense requirements’. The secrecy arises
from its long-standing policy to keep
potential aggressors in doubt about
its true defensive capabilities while
avoiding alarm to regional countries.
With the latest F-15SG deliveries, the
RSAF was able to retire its remaining
handful of F-5S/Ts in August 2015. The
expansion of the F-15 fleet and the
ongoing F-16 mid-life upgrade will
provide the RSAF with a capable fighter
fleet for the next decade and has allowed
a decision on an F-35 purchase to be
delayed until at least the mid-2020s.Singaporean Eagle talons
The centerpiece of the Singaporean
Eagle is the Raytheon AN/APG-63(V)3
radar. Lockheed Martin provided much
of its electro-optical sensor suite, which
encompasses the AN/AAS-42 Tiger Eyes
IRST for passive air-to-air detection, and
the Sniper Advanced targeting pod. The
latter provides targeting for GBU-10/12
Paveway II LGBs and GBU-31/38/54
JDAMs in the precision attack role.
Singapore is also presumed to have the
AGM-154A/C JSOW among its F-15SG
arsenal; a Foreign Military Sales request
was made for the stand-off weapon in
its initial armament package although
none of these have been seen thus far.
For the air-to-air role, the F-15SGs utilize
the AIM-120C AMRAAM and AIM-9X
Sidewinder. The F-15SGs are also Link
16-enabled, which allows them to share
and receive information from the rest of
the armed forces’ integrated knowledge-
based command and control (IKC2)
networks. Roy Choothe 24 aircraft announced, 428th FS
F-15SGs involved in exercises during
late 2013 were spotted wearing tail
numbers indicating that a further
eight aircraft were active. The
observations correlated with Boeing’s
announcement in 2012 that eight F-15s
of an unspecified model were delivered
to a customer that year.
Evidence of yet another order
surfaced when it was discovered that
Boeing had placed eight F-15SGs on
the US Federal Aviation Administration
civil register in mid-2014. While the
purpose of doing so is unclear, the civil
registrations have been canceled with
the deliveries of the latest batch of
eight completed by September 2016.
Fleet distribution of the F-15SG
fleet is believed to be 12 at Mountain
Home and the remaining 28 located
in Singapore. The RSAF operates two
Singapore-based Eagle squadrons atBelow: A 142
Squadron-marked
Eagle returns to
Paya Lebar after a
training sortie. The
‘Gryphons’ stood
down as the last
Singapore-based
A-4SU squadron
in 2005. The unit
was reactivated
11 years later as
the second local
F-15SG squadron
and operational
conversion unit in
early 2016.
Roy Choo
Bottom: An
F-15SG of the
Mountain Home-
based 428th FS
‘Buccaneers’.
Jamie Hunterhttp://www.combataircraft.net // May 2018 49
40-51 Eagles of the world C.indd 49 21/03/2018 10:44