Free Republic

t was the sound of aircraft circling which brought the villagers out just after midnight. Then suddenly they saw a plane dropping from the sky. “I saw it fall down by itself, and after hitting the ground it exploded,” said Mohammed Braik, the farmer in whose field the American F15 Strike Eagle came down. “It caught fire but there was no shooting.” By the time we arrived this morning, people were climbing all over the wreckage – there’s a perilous disregard for basic safety here, which means that rebel fighetrs constantly shoot in the air, and no-one thinks twice about...

Channel 4 News International Editor, Lindsey Hilsum, says that the villagers were shot when a US helicopter picked up the pilot who had ejected from the F-15E Eagle plane after it experienced a mechanical failure. The US aircraft crashed on Monday night and was found in a field outside Benghazi and landed in rebel-held territory. The local Libyans who were injured in the rescue mission are currently in hospital. They are the first confirmed casualities of allied operations, almost four days after operations began. At the time of writing, no one had died as a result of the gunfire. Lindsey...

Two US airmen have been rescued after ejecting from their F-15E Eagle warplane just before it crashed during allied operations in eastern Libya. The plane appeared to suffer mechanical failure near the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the US military said. It came down after a third night of US-led coalition attacks on Col Muammar Gaddafi's forces, aimed at enforcing a UN resolution to protect civilians. Debate is continuing in the coalition over who should take command.

It was conceived in TAC's darkest hour, developed out of a revolutionary concept, designed without role compromise and created for its pilot above all. The F-15 Eagle has since matured and it is without doubt the world's foremost air superiority fighter, having destroyed scores of opponents, from Foxbats to F-4s, in aerial combat without ever sustaining losses. It is the Ultimate MiG-Killer. The F-15 Eagle was born as FX or Fighter eXperimental and just like its nominal predecessor, the F-111, it was another child of the USAF Tactical Air Command (TAC). The Vietnam war was a very rude awakening for...

With radar-cross-section (RCS) trials for Boeing’s Silent Eagle semi-stealthy F-15 prototype complete, company officials are now focusing on South Korea as a possible first customer. The RCS testing took place during a two-week period last August and September, although Boeing has only just acknowledged it because of proprietary issues, says Mark Bass, vice president of F-15 programs. The company is eyeing South Korea’s forthcoming F-X3 competition for 60 fighters as the first sales opportunity for the Silent Eagle. The South Korean parliament’s recent hesitancy about investing in all-stealth aircraft “validates our approach” with the aircraft, says Bass. The company is...

3/25/2005 - NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFPN) -- An F-15 Eagle crashed at about 8:35 a.m. March 25 about 50 miles northeast of here. The pilot ejected safely and was flown back to the base. He and the aircraft are assigned to the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron. A board of officers will investigate the accident.