The ambush by several MiG-29 'Fulcrum' fighters against two F-15 Eagles over Iraq
The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an excellent fighter aircraft that made its first flight on July 27, 1972 in the United States.
Introduced into service with the United States Air Force (USAF) in January 1976, the F-15 is also operated by Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, and Qatar. This fighter has the record of never having been defeated in aerial combat in nearly half a century.
Of course, the F-15 faced extremely difficult missions where that record could have been lost. Some of those missions took place between 1990 and 1991, when the first war involving this aircraft on a large scale took place. In the Gulf War, the USAF shot down 39 Iraqi aircraft in dogfights: 36 of those victories were achieved by F-15 fighters.
In those engagements, USAF F-15s defeated various types of Iraqi fighters, including eight MiG-23s, six Mirage F1s, five MiG-29s, four Su-22s, two MiG-25s, two MiG-21s, two Su-25s, and one Su-7. The F-15, its pilots, and its integrated defense systems (which included E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft) demonstrated their overwhelming superiority over their rivals. It was an opportunity to fight with what was then the most modern Soviet-made fighter, the MiG-29, nicknamed "Fulcrum" by NATO, designed to counter the F-15 and F-16, the most modern American fighters at that time.
One such F-15 engagement against Iraqi fighters took place on January 19, 1991, when two F-15Cs from the 58th Fighter Squadron, a famous unit based at Eglin AFB, Florida, were protecting a strike force of F-16 fighters. The two F-15Cs were piloted by Captain Craig "Mole" Underhill and Captain Cesar "Rico" Rodriguez, and were ambushed by Iraqi MiG-29 fighters that lured them into an area planted with surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). Last Saturday, the excellent channel Yarnhub published a video recreating the story of that engagement on computer:
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Main photo: Eglin Air Force Base.
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