Photo: USAF/Master Sgt. Matthew Plew
Generally speaking, every single photo of its aircraft the U.S. Air Force (USAF) releases on a weekly basis is a sight to behold. They’re usually very detailed snapshots of incredible machinery in action, and that’s how these releases earned a recurrent presence in our Photo of the Day section. Yet few of the USAF pics released so far are as detailed as the one we have here.
The image was snapped at the end of June, but was just made public by the Air Force. It shows an F-15E Strike Eagle, deployed with the 335th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, as it conducts refueling operations over the military’s central area of responsibility. It’s a pic in most respects like others we’ve seen before, but at the same time, one of the most detailed.
The closeup is so high-fidelity that almost every wrinkle of the bird is noticeable, and the paint job looks simply stunning. The proximity of the photographer to the F-15 also allows us to see the two pilots inside the cockpit, with one of them watching closely how the connection between the refueling boom and the plane takes place and even the markings over the left-side engine.
If anything, this highly-detailed pic of the Strike Eagle is the perfect tribute to the F-15 family, which at the end of July, celebrated its 50th anniversary.
The F-15 flew for the first time in 1972 and quickly grew to become one of the workhorses of the American military. Several variants have been made since, with the Strike Eagle being introduced in 1986, and the most recent version being the F-15EX Eagle II, which entered service in March 2021.
At the time of writing, according to Boeing’s count, there are some 1,500 Eagles in various configurations serving the needs of America and its allies.
The closeup is so high-fidelity that almost every wrinkle of the bird is noticeable, and the paint job looks simply stunning. The proximity of the photographer to the F-15 also allows us to see the two pilots inside the cockpit, with one of them watching closely how the connection between the refueling boom and the plane takes place and even the markings over the left-side engine.
If anything, this highly-detailed pic of the Strike Eagle is the perfect tribute to the F-15 family, which at the end of July, celebrated its 50th anniversary.
The F-15 flew for the first time in 1972 and quickly grew to become one of the workhorses of the American military. Several variants have been made since, with the Strike Eagle being introduced in 1986, and the most recent version being the F-15EX Eagle II, which entered service in March 2021.
At the time of writing, according to Boeing’s count, there are some 1,500 Eagles in various configurations serving the needs of America and its allies.
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