Barely a month after the USAF announced that Kadena Air Base in Japan would lose its F-15C/D Eagles, they are now heading home. Tom Kaminski reports
The departure of 12 F-15C/Ds from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa on December 1, 2022, marked the beginning of the end of a long career for the air superiority version of the Eagle with the USAF.
Departing Kadena using the call signs ‘Zesty 11-16’ and ‘Zesty 21-26’, the jets comprised a mix of 11 single-seat F-15Cs and one two-seat F-15D from the 44th and 67th Fighter Squadrons (FS). The initial leg of the return flight to the US saw the fighters arrive at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam/Daniel International Airport in Hawaii. The final leg of the flights was scheduled to put the Eagles down at the Kingsley Field Air National Guard Base, in Klamath Falls, Oregon. From there some of the jets will be distributed to one of the six Air National Guard units that continue to fly the Eagle, while others will move to Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, for storage with the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group.
