Farewell to the Eagle!

After 20 years of flying the F-15 Eagle and providing air defense over the Northeast United States, the 102nd Fighter Wing said a final goodbye to the Eagle before assuming a new mission and becoming the 102nd Intelligence Wing. In the Summer of 2008, F-15A 76-0040 was put on display at Otis ANGB in Cape Cod.

The aircraft had been sitting outside for quite some times and had not flown for a long time. Brian Savage and Pat Ryan from the 102nd FW got the idea of rescuing '040'. When the jet was first towed in the hangar, it was a wreck and eyebrows were raised. Both the 102nd Sheetmetal Shop and the 102nd Machine Shop provided all the help to the project to save '040' since the beginning. "Without these two shops, '040' would never have happened!" said Pat Ryan. Also very important were the 102nd R & R shop, Doug Proulx and Josh Daniel, both 102nd Crew Chief. Many more members from the 102nd also helped and the list would be too long to post here! Altogether, Brian and Pat put more than 1300 hours of labor into this project!

F-15A '040' was restored to be displayed so no one would forget that the 102nd FW was the best F-15 unit in the world. The 102nd Fighter Wing ended a 20 year period of flying the F-15s with 87,000 accident free hours!

The pictures on this page were provided by Pat Ryan and show 76-040 in different stages during the preservation work.

(Click on thumnails to view a larger image)