Operational U.S. Air Force F-15EX Eagle II fighters have dropped live bombs for the first time during training at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, another milestone for the service’s newest version of the Eagle.
The aircraft belong to the Oregon Air National Guard’s 142nd Wing, the first operational unit to receive the F-15EX. The wing deployed its Eagle IIs to Nellis for three weeks in late August and early September in support of the U.S. Air Force Weapons Instructor Course.
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The milestone occurred on August 27. Images released by the 142nd Wing show weapons personnel loading a live bomb onto an F-15EX and one of the fighters taxiing with a single bomb mounted on its centerline station before takeoff.
The Air Force did not disclose how many live bombs were dropped during the deployment or provide details about the complete weapon load used in the missions.
From inert bombs to live ordnance
The Nellis deployment followed the 142nd Wing’s first air-to-ground weapon employment with the F-15EX earlier this year.
In May, personnel from the Oregon unit deployed to Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, where its aircraft dropped 36 inert bombs during ten missions. The weapons comprised 24 500-lb BDU-50s and 12 2,000-lb BDU-56s.
Although externally similar to conventional bombs, the training weapons contain concrete instead of explosives. The exercise was the first time an operational F-15EX unit had loaded and dropped bombs.
At the time, the 142nd Wing said the next stage of its air-to-ground qualification would involve live bombs at Nellis at the end of August. The latest deployment completed that step.
The progression is significant for the Oregon unit, which previously operated the F-15C, a version of the Eagle dedicated primarily to the air-to-air mission. The two-seat F-15EX adds extensive air-to-ground capabilities inherited from later members of the F-15 family.
F-15EX weapons testing began years earlier
The August event was not the first time an F-15EX had released live ordnance. Test aircraft had already employed several weapons before the type reached operational units.
The first weapon fired by an F-15EX was an AIM-120D AMRAAM air-to-air missile on January 25, 2022. An aircraft from the 40th Flight Test Squadron launched the missile against a BQM-167 target drone over the Gulf of Mexico during a Combat Archer evaluation.
Testing subsequently expanded the Eagle II’s air-to-air load. In November 2022, two F-15EXs fired an AIM-120 and an AIM-9X from the new Stations 1 and 9, part of the work to validate a configuration of up to 12 air-to-air missiles.
The air-to-ground test program also preceded the Oregon unit’s training. In 2023, the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron validated the F-15EX with the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), including the ability to carry three of the long-range weapons.
Large weapons payload
The single bomb visible in the images from Nellis therefore does not represent the F-15EX’s normal payload limit. Payload capacity is one of the defining characteristics of the aircraft, which retains the large number of external stations of the F-15 family and adds provisions for additional weapons.
The Air Force has demonstrated configurations with as many as 12 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, while testing has also validated carriage of three JASSMs. The aircraft can combine air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons according to the mission.
For the 142nd Wing, however, the August sorties had a different purpose. Rather than demonstrating the maximum amount of ordnance the Eagle II can carry, they marked the first live-bomb employment by an operational F-15EX unit after the initial training with inert weapons at Mountain Home.
