German F-15

Circa...when?
Referring to your time of service.
A lot changed after 1979.
The APG-65 could track (within limitations, given the profile of the merge), but could the AIM-7 follow?
I have even less faith in the AIM-9 of the time being able to prosecute/complete against a highly mobile/maneuverable target, but that's speculation on my part.

It was '78 for 1 TFW (the USN only came with F-8's in '77). These two never went head to head over PLER.
I was living in Cold Lake in 78 and it was the first time I ever saw operational F-15A's.
And it was awesome.
To say the least.
I saw the demonstrator F-15 (284 or 288?) on it's way to the Paris Air Show when I lived in Goose Bay. Also all of the F-14's going to Iran and the Greek A-7's (plus tons of other stuff going to tons of other places).
Everything staged through Goose in those days. YF-16 and YF-17 as well, both in Bi-Centennial paint jobs.
Fun times.

I was in 1 TFW from late '76 til mid '82 when I crosstrained off the flightline. I did flightline Avionics, support branch and maintenance debriefing. Being stationed at Langley meant we saw a lot of special demo flights. YC-14, YC-15, XV-15, as well as every demo pilot that represented TAC who had to demo for the TAC commander before doing a public airshow. We also had a regular flow of RCAF F-101s stopping on weekends on their way to and from the ranges at Tyndall.

The AIM-9J (current at the time had trouble following actively maneuvering targets UNLESS they gave a very hot heat sourcesuch as a highpower turbojet in AB (J-75, J-79 were both very hot engines) I had pilots tell me that they would 'waste' an AIM-7 to get an opponent to kick in his AB to get away. That gave the 9J a got target to track. If the target backed off the AB The J could usually maintain lock but if not the Eagle driver would be following for a gun run. And if the target went vertical no one could outrun the Eagle.
 
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