Gentlemen, a puzzle.
while soaring through the interwebnet, i cam upon the wiki (yes, i know) page for the F-15E. one of the pictures on said page showed a USAF F-15E over Northern Iraq in 1999. the aircraft was pictured head on, presumably from a refueling tanker, and showed the aircraft carrying 2 AIM-9 and 2 AIM-120 on the shoulder mounted pylons, 2 500lb LGB on the left conformal fuel tank, and a single AIM-7 Sparrow on the right conformal fuel tank.
File:USAF F-15E Strike Eagle Iraq 1999.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
could anyone suggest a reason why this aircraft would be armed with an AIM-7 when it had AIM-120's available - and, i must admit, i'd thought that Sparrow had long been phased out of the USAF by that stage....
yours, in gratitude...