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Indeed, on all counts! My first internet handle in the 90s and early 00s was StrikeEagle, so there's that. Had die casts and posters of it in my room.

Where the F-15 has the angular lines and looks the business, the SU-27 has the sleek lines and matching agility.

As for that YF program, the 23 was superior on all fronts except for subsonic maneuverability, and for some bizarre reason, the USAF thought VR dogfighting would be on the table. There was a rumor about a potential upgrade with engine mount and duct swiveling for the 23.

They just really wanted to go with Lockheed. One of their justifications was that Northrop had prior problems fulfilling B2 orders.

Yeah man, the F-14 and F-15 are enormous. Got to sit in the cockpit of an F-15C at one point. Used to see Air and Sea shows as a kid and seeing the F-14 was really something. My family was invited onto a carrier, and yes threose F-14s were enormous, but if you saw them flying low passes, you already figured as much. Depending on the year that you were on that carrier, you may have gotten to see the original F/A-18 Hornet alongside a modern Superhornet; they're very different aircraft, as the latter is a 20% upscaled airframe.

The F-15 and F-14 were large because they played a different role than jets like their Viper and Hornet counterparts. Those aircraft are quite small to see in person. Similarly, the Russian counterparts to the F-15 and 16- the SU-27 and MiG29, you'd find the latter to be positively tiny compared to the former. Walked up to a MiG-29 at the Evergreen Museum in Oregon and that thing was basically a dual-engine, twin tail F-16 in terms of size.

These are all superficial talking points though. If you want to really geek out, we can talk avionics and missiles all day.

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