Timeline F-15 Eagle

F-15 Eagle 13

• 1969 McDonnell Douglas wins F-X The future F-15 McDonnell Douglas wins the US Air Force's F-X competition for a pure air superiority fighter.
• 1972 F-15 Eagle first flight Edwards Air Force Base McDonnell Douglas test pilot Irving Burrows flies the first F-15, an air superiority fighter built on the lessons of Vietnam.
• 1975 Streak Eagle climb records Eight time-to-climb records A stripped, unpainted F-15 nicknamed Streak Eagle sets eight time-to-climb world records, reaching 30,000 m in about three and a half minutes.
• 1976 F-15 enters USAF service Langley Air Force Base The 1st Tactical Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, becomes the first operational F-15 unit.
• 1979 The Eagle's first combat victory Israeli Air Force over Lebanon Israeli F-15s shoot down Syrian MiG-21s over southern Lebanon, the first air-to-air kills for the Eagle.
• 1981 Operation Opera Israeli strike on Osirak Eight Israeli F-16s, escorted by F-15s, destroy Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad.
• 1982 Bekaa Valley air battle Operation Mole Cricket 19 Israeli F-15s and F-16s, supported by early-warning aircraft, destroy Syrian air defences and shoot down dozens of Syrian fighters without loss in air combat — one of the most one-sided air battles in history.
• 1983 F-15 lands with one wing Negev mid-air collision After a collision with an A-4 tears off most of its right wing, an Israeli F-15D lands safely — its fuselage generating enough lift to fly.
• 1985 F-15 shoots down a satellite ASM-135 anti-satellite test An F-15 zooms to high altitude and fires an ASM-135 missile that destroys the Solwind P78-1 satellite in orbit.
• 1986 F-15E Strike Eagle first flight Two seats, ground attack The dual-role F-15E flies, adding deep strike to the Eagle's air superiority mission.
• 1991 Gulf War air campaign begins Operation Desert Storm Coalition aircraft open an air campaign of more than five weeks against Iraq. US F-15Cs score the majority of the coalition's air-to-air victories.
• 2007 F-15C breaks apart in flight Fleet grounded A Missouri Air National Guard F-15C breaks apart during a training flight. The pilot survives and the entire F-15 fleet is grounded while cracked longerons are found.
• 2021 F-15EX Eagle II first flight St. Louis, Missouri Boeing's F-15EX, a heavily updated Eagle, flies at St. Louis — the US Air Force buying new F-15s almost 50 years after the first.