Looks Like F-15 Will Stick Around For A While.

That is in a form of F-15X being pitched by Boeing. I was about to exclaim: but what about Stealth!? Forgive me for using this moniker instead of more professional terms such as reduced physical fields or low(er) observability, depending on diapason, of course. F-15 is a good aircraft with some "kill history" against inept pilots (mostly Arabs) and old Soviet technology and the idea of modernization is never bad once the fact of this whole Stealth being useless against modern, as one example among many, Air-Defense systems, which do really well in terms of sensor (data) fusion and have no problems in locking onto any "Stealthy" aircraft, that is to say, shoot it down, is considered.

So, in the end it all comes down to a classic Force--its size, structure and the way it delivers its salvo, or salvos of its weapons. That is HOW it is deployed and how it will fare, in case of a serious war with even remotely competent adversary, in terms of its attrition rates. So, numbers do matter, in the end, right? Right, especially since US Air Force knows (I know it does) that first radiophotonics location devices do exist and, in fact, already detect, track and (I assume) lock on any target--stealth, super stealth or, possibly even a super-duper stealth. So, enter good ol' F-15, give it a full glass cockpit, new engines, some modern nice AA weapons and... drum roll... what do we read in the end of this informative article? Ah, here it is.  

 Looking to the future, the sources said, the F-15X is ideally suited to carry hypersonic weapons

Why such an emphasis on hyper-sonic weapons? Because it is all fad, en vogue, all the hype and, actually, in a more serious way--a new technological paradigm. We are not on the verge, we are inside a true Revolution In Military Affairs. No, not the one born out of turkey shoot of grossly incompetent and badly trained Saddam's Army, but out of what (I love to quote him a lot) Douglas Macgregor warned about: 

“In 110 days of fighting the German army in France during 1918, the U.S. Army Expeditionary Force sustained 318,000 casualties, including 110,000 killed in action. That’s the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a future war with real armies, air forces, air defenses and naval power. Ignoring this reality is the road to future defeats and American decline. It’s time to look beyond the stirring images of infantrymen storming machine-gun nests created by Hollywood and to see war for what it is and will be in the future: the ruthless extermination of the enemy with accurate, devastating firepower from the sea, from the air, from space and from mobile, armored firepower on land.” 

As per F-35 or F-22. Well, you decide.