Well done, 71st
Posted on 07/19/2010 8:29:16 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
For 34 years, Peninsula residents could look skyward and spot the familiar silhouette of the F-15C Eagle.
Enemy pilots never found the sight as comforting. The fighter has compiled a combat record of 104 victories against zero losses.
Now an era is coming to end — two eras, really. The 71st Fighter Squadron at Langley is being inactivated, a move that was announced in June 2009 as part of a service-wide restructuring.
And because the 71st flies the F-15, those jets are being parceled out to other Air Force and Air National Guard units.
The last F-15 will leave Hampton in mid-September The squadron will be officially inactivated on Sept. 30.
"It has been a milestone for this base, this community," said Lt. Col. Joel Cook, squadron commander, who described his mood as "bittersweet."
The 71st was formed in January 1941, and fought against Axis forces in Algeria, North Africa, Italy and around the Mediterranean. Its pilots flew the distinctive P-38 Lightning, a twin-engine fighter that Germans referred to as Der Gabelschwanz Teufel, or fork-tailed devil.
The squadron moved to Langley in 1975 and received its F-15s shortly thereafter.
F-15s from Langley have since served around the world. When war broke out in the Persian Gulf in January 1991, the 71st was credited with the first aerial victory.
All told, F-15s from the Air Force accounted for 36 of 39 air-to-air victories in that conflict.
The aircraft has also patrolled no-fly zones over Iraq and served in the Iraq War. Most recently, it has focused on homeland security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The F-15 has fans in the civilian community, too. Perhaps none is more knowledgeable than Roy Harris, a retired aeronautical engineer from NASA Langley Research Center who helped design the jet.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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Well done, 71st
Capt. Matt Buckner, an F-15 Eagle pilot assigned to the 71st Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Wing, at Langley Air Force Base, Va., flies a combat air patrol mission 7 October 2007 over Washington, D.C., in support of Operation Noble Eagle. The aircraft is a McDonnell Douglas F-15C-35-MC Eagle (s/n 83-0026).
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