I have seen various F-15 squadrons in operation. And, one of my final assignments was seeing the USAF F-15 depot in action including a friend with about 25 years working those jets.
The handbook is just an easy overview and doesn't have all the massive amounts of technical orders the line maintainers and depot pukes use day to day.
A few points:
USAF spent so many years investing in quality maintenance of the F-15 A through E with the ability to deploy them with skilled maintainers.
The decline of F-15 maintenance started in the Clinton era with Operation:DENY CHRISTMAS every year. Things improved a bit during Bush II and started getting patchy as Operations:USELESS DIRT 1 and 2 took lots of money.
Again and again.
Now things are getting real bad.
Maintenance for the complex F-15E is steady work for experienced people. When you have a service that is getting rid of such tribal knowledge in favor of keeping too many flag ranks and SES, it is a big effort to keep going. Trouble stacks up with spares and other resources underfunded. Jets get parked. Mission capability numbers go South.
Our combat capability will be poorer for it.
The handbook also points out that stealth is not free. The F-15 of course is not a stealthy aircraft.
It does however have numerous drain holes and vents to shed thermal build up.
The F-22 (corrosion of wide varieties..."dog year" credits for maintenance hour intervals at dry basing locales) and the F-35 (hopefully improved corrosion avoidance)...yet...the thermal shedding for all the various systems in the jet are a big challenge.
We might be in a lot of trouble in the coming years.
(hard working USAF F-15E maintainers)
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