The Oregon Air National Guard’s 142nd Wing has dropped live bombs from its F-15EX Eagle IIs, making it the first operational Eagle II unit to do so, according to official photographs and captions released Wednesday.
The milestone came during a deployment lasting three weeks to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, that ended this month.
The wing said the deployment supported the Air Force Weapons Instructor Course and produced “a historical milestone, dropping live bombs from operational F-15EXs for the first time.” The achievement followed months of preparation by pilots and weapons loaders.
Images taken Aug. 27 show the jets parked on the ramp and flying over the training area.
Some aircraft carried a live Mk-82 weighing 500 pounds on the centerline station, while others carried an AN/AAQ-33 Sniper targeting pod.
The Air Force has not disclosed how many live bombs the 142nd Wing dropped during the deployment.
The photographs and official captions nevertheless document the first live releases by an operational F-15EX unit.
The live bombing followed the wing’s first drops of inert practice bombs in May at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho.
Those releases gave the unit experience operating the Eagle II in an air-to-ground role before moving on to live weapons at Nellis.
In July, the wing announced that it had dropped 24 BDU-50s in the 500 pound class and 12 BDU-56s in the 2,000 pound class.
All were practice bombs filled with concrete, and the releases took place across 10 missions.
The Mountain Home missions were the first bomb drops of any kind by an operational F-15EX unit.
The subsequent Nellis deployment advanced that effort from inert weapons to live bombs, following the sequence the wing had previously announced.
Before receiving the Eagle II, the 142nd Wing operated the F-15C, a fighter designed for air superiority. The Oregon unit received the Air Force’s first operational F-15EX in June 2024.
Three pilots assigned to the unit already had air-to-ground experience.
Those pilots created a compressed syllabus to prepare the rest of the wing’s pilots for the expanding mission set.
Weapons personnel also went through a focused training process. A small group of loaders with previous experience loading bombs became certified to load weapons on F-15Es at Nellis earlier this year.
Those certified personnel then trained the loaders who participated in the Mountain Home deployment.
That preparation helped set the stage for the practice bomb missions and the later live releases at Nellis.
The wing’s July statement identified live bombing at Nellis as the next step toward becoming capable of conducting air-to-ground missions. The newly released photographs show that the unit completed that planned step.
“It’s about building a dynamic and versatile organization, and we are just getting started,” Col. Joshua Hovanas, commander of the 142nd Operations Group, said in a statement.
The aircraft photographed during the Nellis deployment flew without conformal fuel tanks, which provide additional weapons stations.
Plans for the broader F-15EX fleet have also expanded since a fiscal 2023 budget request proposed limiting the purchase to 80 aircraft. In April, the Air Force said it now plans to build a fleet of 267 Eagle IIs.
