Freaking Awesome Photo of four U.S. F-15C Eagle jets Breaking the formation

July 31, 2015 Military Aviation

David Cenciotti

Stunning air-to-air image shows a four-ship formation break.

The top image (click on this link for the high resolution version) shows four F-15C Eagle jets belonging to the 493rd Fighter Squadron, based Royal Air Force Lakenheath, UK, as they break the formation during flying operations on Jul. 22, 2015.

The 493rd FS recently received the 2014 Raytheon Trophy as the U.S. Air Force’s top fighter squadron.

Image credit: Courtesy photo by Ioannis Lekkas/Released

About David Cenciotti

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.

M&S says:

August 10, 2016 at 1:33 PM

Rodan is one BAB. Amazing how poorly the Mod Eagle scheme matches the isoluminent speculars at altitude over the North European skies. Ghost was far more effective.
Given that the RCS values are also in the 5-7m2 range (with the tanks), one has to wonder if it wouldn’t be more prudent to go to the F-35 (36170) topcoat and try for a little better radar reduction while flying up and out of the bright-sky range towards FL35-40 where the low reflectance paint would no longer be a black airplane shaped hole in the sky.
If they are serious about dancing with the Bear, a GaNi based expendable like Brite Cloud would also be nice.