39 of Kadena’s 55 F-15s deemed fit to fly

[unhappycamper]

39 of Kadena’s 55 F-15s deemed fit to fly
By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, January 12, 2008

KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa — People around this air base will hear a familiar roar Monday.

Kadena announced that 39 of the base’s 55 F-15 Eagle combat jets are expected to resume normal flight operations after being grounded since November following the crash of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C.

The jets assigned to the 18th Wing are all F-15C and F-15D models, according to a base news release.

But while some have been cleared to fly again, 16 F-15s at Kadena will remain on stand- down as officials at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center continue to evaluate thickness measurement data for their longerons — longitudinal structural components of the aircrafts’ fuselage, the release said.

Inspections of F-15s followed the November crash in which one of the planes came apart in flight. An Air Force fleetwide investigation found that nine F-15s had cracks in their longerons. Two of them were based at Kadena. About 60 percent of the Air Force’s 441 older model F-15s were cleared to fly.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51552