
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
The Mi-24 was downed during Desert Storm. That would be in 1991.
Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are.
Have fun on TV.
Don’t know what smartness has to do with a typo but thank you “Viper”….
They were not saying that it shot it down in 2012. If you look closer, it states that in Jan of 1991 that it shot it down. It is saying that in 2012, it hit the 10000 hour mark.