The Eagle has Landed... & The Eagle is Grounded

cyrusdvirus

CNN wrote:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A mandatory grounding of Air Force F-15s has been expanded to cover those flying combat missions over Afghanistan after a crash in Missouri last week, Air Force officials said Monday.


The Air Force grounded models of its F-15 fleet after the crash of an older model F-15C Friday.

The F-15Es in Afghanistan can fly only in emergency situations to protect U.S. and coalition troops in a battle, according to Maj. John Elolf, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force Central Command.

Maj. Cristin Marposon, an Air Force spokeswoman, told The Associated Press the country's fleet of 676 F-15s, including mission critical jets, was grounded on November 3 for "airworthiness concerns" after the crash of an older model F-15C on Friday.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation, but Air Force officials said it was a structural failure and the plane broke apart in flight.

A spokeswoman for Boeing, the aircraft's manufacturer, told AP the company was cooperating with the Air Force but could not provide additional comment because of the pending investigation.

Col. Robert Leeker, commander of the 131st Fighter Wing, said Friday the plane had been among four planes split into pairs and were engaging in one-on-one training flights in which speeds of 400 to 450 mph are typical, according to AP.

A pilot, a 10-year veteran of the guard whose name and rank were not released, safely ejected from the aircraft when it crashed in Dent County, Missouri, AP reported. The pilot suffered a dislocated shoulder, a broken arm and minor cuts and bruises.

Now only "mission critical" F-15s will fly.

Pentagon officials said the U.S. Navy has had to move the only aircraft carrier in the region from the Persian Gulf to the North Arabian Sea to fill mission gaps for the F-15s.

Several dozen F/A-18 fighters from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise will fly missions with other Air Force aircraft to fill mission gaps.

The F-15E Strike Eagle is an air-to-ground and air-to-air fighter, making it more versatile than other F-15 models, which are used for only air-to-air missions.

The Strike Eagle is used in Afghanistan in its air to ground role, dropping bombs on targets with its advanced sensors.

"The U.S. Air Force maintains assigned F-15E Strike Eagles on ground alert and will accomplish all assigned missions with a variety of fighter, attack and bomber aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles, under my command and control during this period," Lt. Gen. Gary L. North, commander of the U.S. Central Command's Combined Forces Air Component, said in a statement Monday.

The single-seat F-15C is one of the older models in the Air Force's fleet of 700 F-15s which entered service in 1979.

The Air Force's top aircraft, the stealthy F-22 Raptor, is newly operational for the air service and has not yet been deployed in combat.

The expensive F-22 will eventually be the main fighter jet for the Air Force, but budgetary restrictions on the plane have forced the Air Force to cut the number of planes it will have in the fleet.

Pity. While not as eyecatching as a Tomcat, they still a pretty plane, and pretty effective too.

Catcher86

The F-15 is a sturdy airplane and I am sure this problem will be rectified soon enough.

This reminds of another incident though, which shows what a class plane this is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1KBQ96_DI

Steyr

The F15E "Strike Eagle" has got to be the sexiest Eagle variant going.:) Move over Tomcat il take an E version any day. Lakenheath in England is going to be VERY quiet alot of the Spotters are already moaning as they love snapping the Eagles at Low Level through LFA7* in Wales otherwise known as the "Mach Loop".........I wonder why..:D






LFA7= Low Fly Area.

punchdrunk

super hornet FTW!!

Steyr

What the heck does FTW stand for????:eek:

Captain Chaos

punchdrunk wrote: »

super hornet FTW!!

The Superhornet will have nothing on the Strike Eagle when they get the APG-63V3 radars. Except more airframe life hours.

vigos

Steyr wrote: »

What the heck does FTW stand for????:eek:

had me confused for a while too

http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/blogchatinstantmessaging/f/whatisFTW.htm

cyrusdvirus

I'd still have a Tomcat. Stick a few AIM 54s on there and be takin pot shots at you boys from a few hundred miles out!!

Captain Chaos

gatecrash wrote: »

I'd still have a Tomcat. Stick a few AIM 54s on there and be takin pot shots at you boys from a few hundred miles out!!

At that distance all an Eagle has to do is turn and burn, it will out run a '54 no prob.

Steyr

Even at its best performance the F-14 was still considered "severely underpowered" even with those engines!:eek:

Captain Chaos

Steyr wrote: »

Even at its best performance the F-14 was still considered "severely underpowered" even with those engines!:eek:

The A Tomcats were underpowered, but the GE F110s in the B and Ds were a god send to the Tomcat. It could finally fight in the vertical with an Eagle in mock dogfights. F-15 pilots used that tactic to exploit the weakness in the F-14A, but when the Bs and Ds came along they were in for a shock.

If the Ds ever got a true FBW system and '120 intergration they would have still been able to mix it up with the best of them today.

cyrusdvirus

Captain Chaos wrote: »

At that distance all an Eagle has to do is turn and burn, it will out run a '54 no prob.

Mere technicalities .......Tomcat still looks better in my not so humbel opinion!!;)

BostonB

Both evenly matched except in the vertical from what I've read. It would come down to the better pilot. Both are fantastic looking aircraft. The F15 is getting old. The F15E are more recent and more useful. They don't want to spend money on the F15C where they don't have to as budgets are tight and any money spent on a F15C is money taken from the F22 and F35.

cyrusdvirus

Well the Strike Eagle gets to stretch it's wings again at least

CNN wrote:

The Air Force is returning F-15E Strike Eagle jets to service over Iraq and Afghanistan after grounding other F-15s, the Air Force said Wednesday.


The Air Force grounded models of its F-15 fleet after the crash of an older model F-15C this month.

The F-15s were grounded after a crash earlier this month in Missouri of an older model that disintegrated in flight.

Each F-15E must pass an inspection of critical parts on the airframe before returning to flying missions, Air Force officials said.

All U.S. Air Force 224 E-model aircraft will undergo a one-time inspection of hydraulic system lines, the Air Force statement said.

The longerons -- molded, metal strips of the aircraft fuselage that run from front to rear -- will also be inspected, according to the Air Force.

The straps and skin panels in and around the environmental control system bay will also be examined, officials said.

The Air Force would not say whether the parts being inspected were part of the problem on the aircraft that crashed.

Don't Miss
Air Force grounds F-15s after Missouri crash
The investigation into why that plane fell apart in flight is still ongoing and Air Force officials will not say what happened until the investigation is complete, an Air Force spokesperson said.

Air Force officials said the rest of the almost 500 F-15s -- older airframes than the F-15Es -- will remain grounded until the investigation offers a solution to what happened.

The E-model aircraft, the youngest and most sophisticated in the F-15 inventory, is heavily used by Central Command for ground support in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is also used for the homeland security mission over the United States known as Operation Noble Eagle.

On November 3, the Air Force grounded all of its F-15s in response to a November 1 crash of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C in Boss, Missouri.

The grounding forced Central Command to use other Air Force, Navy and French fighters to fill the gaps, though Strike Eagles did fly to support troops in battle in Afghanistan as an emergency measure while they were still under grounding orders, according to Central Command reports.

The plane that crashed, built in 1980, was one of the older F-15s in the fleet.

The F-15E Strike Eagle is an air-to-ground and air-to-air fighter, making it more versatile than other F-15 models, which are used for only air-to-air missions.

The Strike Eagle is used in Afghanistan and Iraq in its air-to-ground role, using its advanced sensors to drop bombs on targets

Captain Chaos

BostonB wrote: »

Both evenly matched except in the vertical from what I've read. It would come down to the better pilot. Both are fantastic looking aircraft. The F15 is getting old. The F15E are more recent and more useful. They don't want to spend money on the F15C where they don't have to as budgets are tight and any money spent on a F15C is money taken from the F22 and F35.

The USAF has planned to keep at least 150 F-15C/Ds around to 2025. They will be upgraded with touch screen displays and the APG-63V3 AESA radar, more powerful engines are in the works, possibly the F100-PW-132s rated at 32,000lbs in full AB, thats a nice jump from 23,450lbs. This new radar will have a greater detection and tracking range than the APG-77 in the F-22 due to te larger antenna size that can be fitted in the Eagle's radome. The F-15Es are due to get the APG-63V4 AESA radars and stay on till 2035.

There is also talk of re-activating the latent air to ground software in the F-15A-Ds in the USAF, mainly JDAM support to make the fighters more usefull.

Steyr

gatecrash wrote: »

Well the Strike Eagle gets to stretch it's wings again at least

Also noted in my post about the RAF Tonka.