Col. Jeff Hwang, stands beside the F-15 Eagle he flew for his Fini flight, on Sept. 19, 2014, at the Portland Air National Guard Base in Oregon. The two green stars were added to his aircraft to acknowledge the two MIG 29s he shot down in Kosovo in 1999. The aircraft was flown to Ohio on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, where it will become a museum piece at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. (John Hughel/U.S. Air Force)
(Tribune News Service) — The F-15 involved in the first double MiG-29 Fulcrum kill in the same engagement arrived at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force Tuesday, to become part of the museum's collection of planes.
The operational F-15C Eagle was flown in by a Massachusetts Air National Guard pilot.
In March 1999, Capt. Jeff "Claw" Hwang piloted this F-15C as the commander of an air support mission over the former Yugoslavia during NATO Operation Allied Force.
Nearing the Bosnian/Serbian border in that mission, he acquired a single radar contact, according to an account of Hwang's mission from the museum.
While he and his wingman tracked the bogey, Hwang identified it as two targets in an enemy formation, the museum said.
"Within 90 seconds of detecting the second aircraft, Hwang fired two AIM-120 missiles in rapid succession from a distance of 16 miles and achieved the F-15′s first double MiG-29 Fulcrum kill in the same engagement," the museum said.
Hwang was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and named the 1999 Mackay Trophy recipient, the museum said.
"This F-15C is a significant addition to the collection because the F-15 has more air-to-air victories than any other U.S. fighter since the Vietnam War," the museum said.
The F-15C model accounts for all Air Force aerial victories achieved by F-15s, except for an F-15E that destroyed a low-flying Mi-24 helicopter with a laser guided bomb during Desert Storm.
The aircraft is being flown to the museum by the 104th Fighter Wing, Massachusetts Air National Guard, Barnes Air National Guard Base, Westfield, Mass.
The Air Force is returning an older fleet of F-15C/D Eagle aircraft from Kadena Air Base in Japan back to the United States. The service has sent 18 F-15Cs back to the United States from Kadena since the service announced plans to wind down operations there, Air and Space Forces magazine reported. Four of those fighters have been retired, an Air Force spokeswoman told the magazine.
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