F-15 Fleet Grounded

The big breaking news in the USAF today was the grounding of F-15 Eagle aircraft after an Missouri ANG F-15C crashed on November 2nd. The 131st Fighter Wing has a few very generic press releases about the incident. Thankfully, the pilot ejected without major injury.

The official AF News website says the Air Force has "suspended non-mission critical F-15 flight operations." The Air Force Times reports that F-15E's currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan aren't grounded. CNN says that the deployed F-15E's are only allowed to fly for emergencies to protect coalition forces.

The Air Force operates two flavors of F-15. The C model "Eagle" is a single seat fighter that hasn't seen combat since Desert Storm, while the E model "Strike Eagle" is very capable a 2-seat fighter/bomber that has been keeping busy fighting terrorists for a while. The F-15C's do a very different type of flying than the F-15E's and it seems like C models get stressed a lot more than E models do. If the E models are in fact grounded, it'll be up to the Navy's F/A-18's and the Air Force's B-1B's to pick up the slack.

The F-15C is due to be replaced by the F-22 Raptor, though difficulties with everything from software integration to going incredibly over budget have delayed it's entry into the fleet. Even when it becomes fully operational, it still won't have a combat roll unless the US gets in a fight with someone who owns an Air Force. Also, it has no planned capability to replace the F-15E. Hopefully the issue that affected the 131 FW jet won't affect the Strike Eagles as well.