An Air National Guard pilot ejected safely from his F-15D on Friday afternoon during a training flight when he found he could no longer control the fighter and was losing altitude, reports the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The two-seat version of the F-15 Eagle, which had just been cleared to fly recently following the Air Force-wide grounding of F-15 A-D models, crashed into the ocean about 1:37 p.m. The newspaper noted that the Hawaii ANG’s 199th Fighter Squadron still has seven of its 20—make that 19—F-15s grounded pending further review of the serious structural problems USAF has found in 162 Eagles. According to the newspaper, this is the first Loss of an F-15 by the 199th FS since it began flying Eagles in 1987. The Hawaii Air Guard stopped all training flights, but has kept its fighters on alert status for air defense missions.
It'll take up to 18 months for Lockheed Martin to deliver the 100 or so F-35s that went directly from production line to storage, awaiting the completion of Tech Refresh 3 testing. Customers haven't complained about the order in which the backlog is being delivered.