Strike Eagle- Flying The F 15e In The Gulf War -the Warriors- Jun 2026

On January 18, 1991, just 24 hours into the air war, a Strike Eagle crew— Captain Tim Bennett (Pilot) and Captain Dan Bakken (WSO)— scored the first air-to-air kill for the F-15E. It wasn't a MiG-29. It was a Soviet-built Mil Mi-24 "Hind" helicopter. But the story is what matters.

The pilots and WSOs who flew the Strike Eagle in the Gulf were a specific breed of aviator—aggressive, technically brilliant, and possessed of a cold, analytical nerve. They called themselves "Dirty Thirty" and "Fighting Eagles." They were the warriors who looked at a triple-A (Anti-Aircraft Artillery) infested valley and saw a highway.

“In the F-15E, you don’t have a backseater. You have a partner. If your WSO says ‘pull up,’ you pull up. No questions.” On January 18, 1991, just 24 hours into

But statistics lie. The reality was that the Strike Eagle had done what no one thought a fighter could do. It had survived the most lethal integrated air defense system since Vietnam by flying at 100 knots above the sand. It had transitioned from heavy bombing to air-to-air combat within seconds.

To understand the warrior, one must understand the weapon. The F-15E looked superficially like the F-15D trainer from which it was derived, but it was a beast of a different nature. But the story is what matters

Their jet, callsign "Cornet 22," was spotted by ground radar. The details remain classified to some degree, but it is believed a SA-16 "Gimlet" surface-to-air missile or heavy AAA fire caught the jet during a low-level run. The aircraft crashed. Both men were killed. It was the only F-15E lost to enemy fire during Desert Storm. Eberly and Koritz became the namesakes on the memorials at Seymour Johnson. Their loss hardened the remaining warriors. They flew harder, lower, and faster in their memory.

One of the most famous warriors of this era was Captain (later General) Richard "TB" Bennett , a pilot with ice water in his veins. But the truly unique aspect of the F-15E story is the symbiotic relationship between the pilot and the WSO. Men like Captain Tim "Bones" Bennett (a common name, but a different pilot) and Captain Dan "Chewie" Bakken became legends because they fought the jet as a single organism. The pilot flew the jet through the weeds; the WSO painted the targets and counted the seconds until impact. “In the F-15E, you don’t have a backseater

Flying a Strike Eagle in Desert Storm was a physiological nightmare. The standard mission profile was called "Samurai"—a low-level, high-speed dash under the enemy's radar net.

Today, the pilots who fly the updated F-15E Strike Eagle look back at the Desert Storm warriors with reverence. The jets they fly have Advanced Display Core Processors (ADCP), JHMCS helmets, and Sniper targeting pods. But the soul of the jet is the same.

But the most legendary Strike Eagle mission of the war was the hunt for the Scuds.