STRIKE EAGLE SQUADRON // 492ND FS ‘BOLARS’
Ensuring that a healthy flight line of F-15Es is available falls to the 48th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and the complex team of engineering experts assigned to the 48th Maintenance Group that work around the clock to keep the ‘Bolars’ in the air.
IT’S 06.30 AS a stream of young aircraft maintainers assemble in the main conference room downstairs at Lakenheath’s Strike Eagle Complex — it’s morning roll call. ‘It’s about validating that everyone is here and ready for the day,’ explains TSgt Anthony Moore, a Weapons Expediter in the 492nd Aircraft Maintenance Unit (AMU). ‘They each get assigned their jobs for the day and they’ll go and draw the appropriate tools and equipment.’ The relationship between the maintainers, who ‘live’ downstairs, and operations upstairs, is vital to ensure that the flying schedule runs as expected under a grand masterplan of readiness. Maintenance is the engine room of the squadron — without serviceable Strike Eagles, no one turns a wheel.
‘It’s a massive team eff ort getting these aircraft to fly each day,’ says Lt Col Heather Wooten, commander of the 48th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron (AMXS), which oversees the AMU. The 48th Mai…
