Tag Archives: Oregon air National Guard

Rippling The Wing Skin Of A 40 Year Old Jet

The F-15 Eagle recently had the fiftieth anniversary of its first flight.  It is hard to come to terms with the fact that a jet that I still think as high up the pecking order is really over fifty years old.  Of course, the jets in service now are not the originals but the F-15Cs started production in fiscal year 78 which meant they were delivered from around 1980 onwards.  Therefore, they are over 40 years old which is quite something for a jet getting such heavy use today.

The 173FW put a four ship of F-15C/Ds up for the Sentry Eagle 2022 air show.  They tore up the field in an impressive way for the practice days and the main show itself. Having been a fan of the F-15 since my youth, this was a lot of fun to watch.  I got a series of shots of one of the jets as it pulled hard to the vertical in full burner and then turned towards the crowd direction.  Looking at the surface of the rear wing, there is definitely some deformation of the skins as the structure is loaded up.  This is not a problem.  It is quite common to get aircraft skin to ripple under varying load conditions but it is usually something that is more common on aging airframes.