Yesterday the United States Air Force released details of the F-15 crash in Missouri last November. You can watch an animation of the crash HERE. The pilot ejected and received a few injuries.
The future of the F-15 might be in trouble according to recent reports. About 40% are out of commission and many may never fly again.
That could be a problem for the Montana Air National Guard. Montana’s F-15Cs were to come from the Missouri Air National Guard. Yes, it appears the plane that crashed was scheduled to come to Montana. Since the crash in Missouri, most F-15s were grounded. Some reports say 160 of the jets nationwide have structural problems. The Air Force released the accident report yesterday, and here is the story from the Air Force news service.
Montana’s Air Guard is supposed to get 15 of the F-15s to replace their F-16s. In 2005, the BRAC Commission initially decided to take all the planes (F-16s) from the Montana Air Guard, but with a little elbow twisting, the BRAC commission decided to replace them with F-15C/D aircraft.
Not too many people may want to think about it, but Montana may end up without any planes or less planes than previously scheduled to come here. It may come down to which state has the most clout to convince the Department of Defense to deploy their planes there. Clout was used in 2005 after the Montana Guard was schedule to lose all their F-16s. It may take even more clout to keep the F-15s on schedule to come to Montana.
Times have changed since the 2005 BRAC round, and with fewer planes to deploy for our air defense and without newer planes being built very quickly like the F-22, it may mean some locations will do without. Let’s hope that down the road, we’ll hear the sound of freedom flying across the Big Sky state, and with the Montana Air National Guard logo on them.
The Western Word 
Wolfpack – Good points. Maybe the F-15 has more stress on their parts than the B-52, but it looks like someone could develop a replacement part that would hold up to the stress. I am sure the B-52 has been rebuilt over the years. Too bad more planes were not built as good as the B-52. Thanks for visiting. -JtB
Hard to believe that a cracked longeron/stringer is not cost effective to repair. The commercial aircraft world does this every day of the week on a routine basis for aircraft much older and flown more than the F-15’s. I bet the B-52 fleet has been almost completely rebuilt over the years one part at a time.