Posted on 11/11/2007 6:27:16 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
France fills in F-15's role in Afghanistan after crash
www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-07
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- With U.S. F-15 fighters ordered to stand by in Afghanistan, French fighters are providing close-air support for U.S. troops and their allies there, the Military Times reported Wednesday.
Since a Nov. 2 crash of a F-15C Eagle in Missouri, the U.S. AirForce has restricted flights of F-15Es and F-15Cs to "mission-critical" sorties only.
In Afghanistan, where F-15Es take off from Bagram Air Base, the restriction means that F-15Es sit on combat alert status but are not assigned to pre-planned or on-call missions.
In the absence of F-15s, French Mirage 2000 and F-1 CR fighters were summoned for two air strikes and more shows of force above enemy positions in Afghanistan.
Japan has also grounded its F-15s following the U.S. crash.
There is so far no word from the U.S. Air Force on how long theF-15 flight restrictions will remain in place.
The U.S. F-15 fleet includes 522 F-15C Eagles and 217 F-15E Strike Eagles.
Editor: Yan Liang
The French stepping up to the plate. Who da thunk.
its really cool
But, a different question comes to mind. The F15 is basically an air superiority fighter, Why is it providing close air support. With the F15 stand down, and the British Apaches being grounded as well, we’re losing a lot of our close air support capabilities.
It would seem that we’ve gone for complex rather than durable. The A10 Warthog would appear to be the best choice for this role, why are we not producing them by the dozen?
I believe the F-15Es were providing close air support & those are strike jets.Upgraded A-10s are already in Afghanistan,but the type ceased production by the mid-80s,if I remember correctly.
A-10s are excellent at CAS - AC-130s are the best -
Also USN has stepped in (18s) in place of 15s currently (though their time on station is much less and travel distances much further).
Stan needs more Air Cav in country, more CAS and another 3000-6000 Marines would be excellent.
Thanx for the post.I’m way behind the curve on this.I wasn’t aware France was helping us in Afghanistan.Any idea why we r restricting flights of F-15’s?The F-15 has been in service for how many decades?I’d think the bugs would be worked out by now.
The French have been there since OEF started.There was a crash of the F-15 last week & so the fleet was grounded after concerns arose about it’s structural integrity.Not too surprising since the F-15 first went into service 30 years ago.Such groundings are pretty normal since you want to remain on the safe side.
Chinee bhushrit...
Thanx for the info:)Kinda off-topic,but do you know of any links where i can find more info on the Mirage 2000?
Vive La France...again.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Whose idiot idea was it to ban fixed wing aircraft for the U.S. Army? The Marines are allowed fixed wing aircraft, but not the army?
You can get lots of hits on Google.http://www.mirage-jet.com/index.html seems to be a pretty good site,so is http://www.vectorsite.net/avmir2k.html .
I must add that you can the Mirage 2000-5 is a new generation variant,so you will get somewhat different information in it.It’s a very capable aircraft-If the French had as much clout as the Americans & also properly supported product development,the Mirage-2000 would matched the F-16 in sales.The fact that atleast 4 nations use both those aircraft talks a lot about it.
The Marines are allowed fixed wing aircraft, but not the army?
The Army is allowed fixed wing aircraft but they are limited in size and mission. Over the years they've operated a wide range of fixed wing platforms.
They're not expensive enough.
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