175 grounded F-15s don’t meet standards

Cracked longerons
Will some Eagles ever fly again?


175 grounded F-15s don’t meet standards
Staff report
Posted : Wednesday Jan 9, 2008 13:34:00 EST

About 40 percent of the grounded F-15 Eagle fleet will stay grounded at least another month because they “don’t meet blueprint specifications,” Air Combat Command announced late Tuesday.

Whether or not those jets go back into the sky depends on an ongoing study by the F-15 program office at the Warner-Robins Air Logistics Center in Georgia. The analysis is expected to take approximately four weeks to complete.

The grounded jets are scattered across several squadrons.

The news comes with a “return-to-fly order from Air Combat Command for 60 percent of the grounded F-15s. The Air Force has a current fleet of 441 F-15 Eagles, models A through D. The service’s 224 F-15E Strike Eagles have not been grounded.

The order and recommendation follows the fleetwide grounding of F-15A through D models after a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C aircraft broke apart Nov. 2 while on a basic fighter maneuver training flight.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/01/airforce_f15s_grounding_080109w/