{"id":13260286,"date":"2026-08-17T16:20:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/kadena-first-f-15ex-eagle-ii-breaks-cover-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T16:20:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:20:49","slug":"kadena-first-f-15ex-eagle-ii-breaks-cover-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/kadena-first-f-15ex-eagle-ii-breaks-cover-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Kadena&#8217;s First New Eagle Shows Its Colors"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n<p>A single Eagle rolled out of Boeing&rsquo;s St. Louis plant this month wearing two small but loaded details: a &ldquo;ZZ&rdquo; tail flash and the badge of the 18th Wing. Translation &mdash; the first <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/f-15-eagle\/\">F-15EX Eagle II<\/a> built for Kadena Air Base has finally broken cover.<\/p>\r\n<p>The jet, serial 22-0022, made its first flight on 4 August 2026 in bare primer, then flew again on 15 August in full livery. It is also the first aircraft of the new Lot 3. After years of waiting, Okinawa&rsquo;s next-generation Eagle is real, and it is painted for the fight it was bought for.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px;border-radius:8px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:18px\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px;line-height:1.8\"><li><strong>The jet:<\/strong> F-15EX Eagle II serial 22-0022, in 18th Wing &ldquo;ZZ&rdquo; markings<\/li><li><strong>First flights:<\/strong> 4 August 2026 (primer), 15 August 2026 (full livery), from Boeing St. Louis<\/li><li><strong>Destination:<\/strong> Kadena Air Base, Okinawa &mdash; the closest U.S. air base to Taiwan<\/li><li><strong>The plan:<\/strong> 36 F-15EXs to replace Kadena&rsquo;s retired F-15C\/D Eagles<\/li><li><strong>Timeline:<\/strong> first arrivals in 2027, full complement by 2028 (delayed from spring 2026)<\/li><li><strong>First unit:<\/strong> the 67th Fighter Squadron, followed by the 44th<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A gap over Okinawa<\/h2>\r\n<p>Kadena has felt thin for a while. The 18th Wing flew F-15C\/D Eagles for decades, but the Air Force began retiring those tired jets back in 2022, flying the last operational Kadena F-15C in January 2025. Since then the base has leaned on rotating deployments &mdash; F-22 Raptors among them &mdash; to keep fighters over the first island chain while the permanent replacements were built.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=95636178  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/f-15ex-kadena-air-base.jpg\" alt=\"An F-15EX Eagle II at Kadena Air Base, Japan\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">F-15EX and F-15E air power at Kadena Air Base during an earlier familiarization deployment. US Air Force photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why the wait<\/h2>\r\n<p>The delay has an unglamorous cause: a monthslong strike at Boeing&rsquo;s St. Louis F-15EX line in 2025 pushed the whole program to the right. The original plan had Eagles landing on Okinawa in spring 2026; now the first are due in 2027, with the 36th arriving in 2028. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the Senate the fix is stable, long-term contracts.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dpFVAcu8heI\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Because [of] the instability in the [F-15EX] production rates and the unknown future, the contractor just couldn&rsquo;t make the investments necessary to tool up and improve&hellip; That long-term stability allows a contractor to do those things that eventually save the government money, and allow us to produce those aircraft quicker.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Troy Meink<\/strong> &mdash; Secretary of the Air Force<\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">An Eagle built for China<\/h2>\r\n<p>There is no mystery about the mission. Kadena sits closer to Taiwan than any other American air base, and 36 heavily-armed EX Eagles &mdash; each able to haul a dozen air-to-air missiles &mdash; are meant to make the skies over the first island chain a very expensive place to fight. The buy is growing too: the Air Force has more than doubled its planned F-15EX fleet. One freshly-painted jet in St. Louis is the first small proof that the plan is finally moving metal.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-style:italic;color:#777;font-size:14px;margin-top:24px\">Sources: The Aviationist (photos by Jerry McGrath); Air &amp; Space Forces Magazine; Stars and Stripes. Meink quote from Senate Armed Services Committee testimony, 21 May 2026.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/f-15ex-eagle-ii-first-visit-kadena-air-base-okinawa-2026\/\">F-15EX Eagle II Makes Its First Visit to Kadena<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-f-15-eagle-deep-dive\/\">The F-15 Eagle: A Deep Dive Into an Undefeated Fighter<\/a><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A single Eagle rolled out of Boeing&rsquo;s St. Louis plant this month wearing two small but loaded details: a &ldquo;ZZ&rdquo; tail flash and the badge of the 18th Wing. Translation &mdash; the first F-15EX Eagle II built for Kadena Air Base has finally broken cover. The jet, serial 22-0022, made its first flight on 4 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":13259972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[664,670],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13260286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-aviation","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Kadena F-15EX: First Eagle II Breaks Cover<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first F-15EX Eagle II for Kadena Air Base broke cover in 18th Wing markings, as the US Air Force prepares to base 36 new Eagles in Okinawa.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/kadena-first-f-15ex-eagle-ii-breaks-cover-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kadena F-15EX: First Eagle II Breaks Cover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first F-15EX Eagle II for Kadena Air Base broke cover in 18th Wing markings, as the US Air Force prepares to base 36 new Eagles in Okinawa.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/kadena-first-f-15ex-eagle-ii-breaks-cover-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Afterburner - 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