Of the 36 F-15As produced, nine were allocated to the Air Material Command in the Continental U.S., and the remainder were issued to just one squadron, the
8th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron (PRS) attached to the 35th Fighter Group in
Japan. The first four were sent over by ship, arriving in March 1947 at the Japan Air Material Area (JAMA),
Kisarazu, Japan. Their voyage had not been smooth, and three of the four were in such bad shape that they were used for spare parts. The last flying example of the entire P-61 line was a rare F-15A Reporter (RF-61C) (s/n 45-59300), the first production model Reporter to be built. The aircraft was completed on 15 May 1946, and served with the
USAAF and later the
U.S. Air Force until 6 February 1948, when it was reassigned to the
Ames Aeronautical Laboratory at
Moffett Field in
California. There it was reconfigured to serve as a launch vehicle for air dropped scale models of experimental aircraft. It served in this capacity until 1953, when it was replaced by a mammoth wind tunnel used for the same testing. In April, 1955, the F-15 was declared surplus along with a "spare parts" F-61C (s/n 43-8357). The F-15 was sold, along with the parts P-61, to Steward-Davis Incorporated of
Gardena, California, and given the civilian registration N5093V. Unable to sell the P-61C, Steward-Davis scrapped it in 1957. Steward-Davis made several modifications to the Reporter to make it suitable for aerial survey work, including switching to a canopy taken from a
T-33, and to propellers taken from an older P-61. The plane was sold in September, 1956 to Compania Mexicana Aerofoto S. A. of
Mexico City and assigned the Mexican registration XB-FUJ. In Mexico, the Reporter was used for aerial survey work, the very role for which it was originally designed. It was bought by Aero Enterprises Inc. of Willits, California and returned to the US in January 1964 carrying the civilian registration number N9768Z. The fuselage tank and turbosupercharger intercoolers were removed; and the plane was fitted with a 1,600 gal (6,056 L) chemical tank for fire-fighting. It was purchased by Cal-Nat of
Fresno, California at the end of 1964, which operated it as a firefighting aircraft for the next 3 years. In March 1968, the F-15 was purchased by TBM, Inc., an aerial firefighting company located in
Tulare, California (the company's name representing the
TBM Avenger, their primary equipment), who performed additional modifications on the aircraft to improve its performance, including experimenting with several types of propellers before deciding on Curtiss Electric type 34 propellers taken from a late model Lockheed Constellation. On 6 September 1968, Ralph Ponte, one of three civilian pilots to hold a rating for the F-15, was flying a series of routine
Phos-Chek drops on a fire raging near
Hollister, California. In an effort to reduce his return time Ponte opted to reload at a small airfield nearer the fire. The runway was shorter than the one in Fresno, and despite Ponte reducing his load, hot air from the nearby fire reduced the surrounding air pressure and rendered the aircraft overweight. Even at full power the Reporter had not rotated after clearing the 3,500 ft (1,067 m) marker, and Ponte quickly decided to abort his takeoff. He made every effort to control the hurtling craft, but the Reporter careened off the runway and through a vegetable patch, before striking an embankment which tore off the landing gear. The aircraft then slid sideways, broke up, and caught fire. Ponte scrambled through the shattered canopy unhurt, while a firefighting TBM Avenger dropped its load of Phos-Chek on the plane's two engines, possibly saving Ponte's life. The F-15 was deemed too badly damaged to rebuild, and was soon scrapped, bringing an end to the aircraft's career. ==Variants==