F-15Es of the 335th Fighter Squadron at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., excelled in a recent Combat Hammer weapons evaluation hosted at Hill AFB, Utah, doubling the average “hit” percentage on graded strike sorties, according to unit officials. “Airmen built, loaded, and employed 50 inert and live bombs, along with several thousand rounds of 20 mm bullets,” said Capt. Brandon Glass, 335th Maintenance Unit officer in charge. “We achieved 100 percent of our sorties with zero ground aborts. This is a rare feat for F-15Es,” he added. The unit’s maintainers crowned the achievement, turning in the “best maintenance performance in the history of Combat Hammer” receiving “excellent” ratings across the board, states Seymour Johnson’s Aug. 27 release. Combat Hammer grades units on every aspect of their air-to-ground weapons maintenance, handling, loading, and employment, with the goal of optimizing the units’ performance in combat. A Seymour Johnson contingent of 12 F-15Es and 250 airmen deployed to Hill from Aug. 10 to Aug. 20. (Seymour Johnson report by A1C Mariah Tolbert)
Exasperated with the delays to the F-35’s Tech Refresh 3 update—which has held up deliveries of completed fighters since last fall—the House Armed Services Committee wants to slash the military services’ fiscal 2025 F-35 purchase by at least 10 aircraft and as much as 20.