F-15E Strike Eagle reaches 10,000 logged flying hours

01/17/2012: F-15E Strike Eagle reaches 10,000 logged flying hours

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In photo 1, Capt. Ryan Bodenheimer celebrates as he and Capt. Erin Short taxi onto the runway in F-15E Strike Eagle No. 89-0487 before the mission that will bring its logged flying hours up to 10,000 at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, Jan. 13, 2012. Bodenheimer is an F-15E pilot with the 335th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron and is deployed from Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. Short is a weapons system officer with the 335th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron and is also deployed from Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.
In photo 2, F-15E Strike Eagle No. 89-0487 sits in its spot at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, Jan. 13, 2012. No. 89-0487 is a highly credited aircraft, being the only F-15 to successfully complete an air-to-air kill; an achievement that the aircraft reached in 1991 while serving in Operation Desert Storm, and now the only F-15 to log 10,000 hours of flying time.
In photo 3, F-15E Strike Eagle No. 89-0487 lands after completing the mission that brought its flying hours up to 10,000 at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, Jan. 13, 2012. No. 89-0487 is the only aircraft of its type to complete an air-to-air kill and is now the only F-15 to reach 10,000 flying hours.

(For an analysis of the meaning of this event please see the Comment by Secretary Wynne