{"id":35501,"date":"2024-09-20T10:39:39","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=35501"},"modified":"2024-09-20T10:39:39","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:39:39","slug":"air-minded-kadena-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=35501","title":{"rendered":"Air-Minded: Kadena Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I flew F-15C Eagles with the 44th Fighter Squadron Vampires at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, from late 1989 to early 1992. F-15C Eagles have been almost completely phased out of the active Air Force inventory; the few remaining at Kadena are the last. Based on what I&#8217;ve heard this week the phaseout may be almost complete, with as few as one F-15C still at Kadena.<\/p>\n<p>I have a friend who&#8217;s an aeronautical engineer at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. He&#8217;s at Kadena this week, briefing USAF officials on a weapon system under development. He tells me he&#8217;s seen only one C model on base. I think it&#8217;s this one, sitting in a maintenance hanger alongside a temporarily-deployed F-22 Raptor. The photo was taken within the last 24 hours and posted to an F-15 group this morning by Kei Kanazawa.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2qhAbjF\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54008987443_4ff7435770_c.jpg\" alt=\"kadena\" width=\"800\" height=\"560\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My friend tells me the two F-15 squadrons on base, the 44th FS Vampires and 67th FS Fighting Cocks, are in limbo between aircraft: their F-15Cs have been either flown off to the Boneyard or to Air National Guard units in the States, and only a few pilots remain on duty, possibly with only the one Eagle to fly between them. Both squadrons are supposed to get new F-15EX Eagle II aircraft, but that hasn&#8217;t happened yet and I think it&#8217;ll be a while before the new jets and pilots start showing up, given that only a few EX models have been delivered to date and training of new pilots is just beginning.<\/p>\n<p>During his Kadena visit, my friend was able to visit my former unit, the 44th FS. In a thoughtful and much-appreciated gesture, he sent me this photo from the Bat Cave, the squadron lounge, where the names of former Vampires line the tops of all four walls. I&#8217;m tickled to see my own name still on the wall (center, top), alongside those of fondly-remembered squadronmates. Thank you, my friend!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2qhBd3A\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54009188350_7f2fd08d7d_c.jpg\" alt=\"44tfs_bar\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?page_id=14450\">\u2014<em><strong> back to the Air-Minded Index<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m tickled to see my own name still on the wall, alongside those of fondly-remembered squadronmates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1960,3,14,2],"tags":[4380,4086,4379],"class_list":["post-35501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-minded","category-flying","category-military","category-personal","tag-f15eagle-2","tag-glorydays","tag-sierrahotel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35501"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35512,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35501\/revisions\/35512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}