F-15E Strike Eagle that destroyed a flying Iraqi Mi-24 reaches 10,000 logged flying hours. Over Afghanistan.

On Jan. 13, 2012, at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, the F-15E Strike Eagle #89-0487 became the only Strike Eagle to have had a successful air-to-air kill and the only F-15 to have logged more than 10,000 hours of flying time.

In fact, in Jan. 1991, the same plane piloted by Capt. Tim Bennet and WSO Capt. Dan Bakke, destroyed a flying Iraqi Mi-24 helicopter with a 2,000-lb GBU-10 Laser Guided Bomb in the only credited F-15E air-to-air kill recorded so far.

Capt. Ryan Bodenheimer and Capt. Erin Short of the 445th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron deployed from Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. flew the F-15E during the historical mission that brought the logged flying hours of #89-0487 up to 10,000, an event that was celebrated by applying special markings to the lucky plane.

Image credit: Air Force

About David Cenciotti

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.