I see now. The tailcode (two big letters on the tail) represents the aircraft's home base. For example SJ for Seymour-Johnson, LN for
RAF Lakenheath, MO for Mountain Home, etc. See our article
on F-15E tailcodes.
The serial number (also painted on the tail) consists is of 2-plus-4 digits in the form of XX-YYYY.
-- XX is the last two digits of the fiscal year the aircraft was manufactured in. For example 89 for 1989, 90 for 1990, 00 for 2000, 01 for 2001, etc. At least this is the theory. In practice the year of the order for manufacturing is what counts, not the actual year when the aiframe rolls out from the factory.
-- YYYY is the serial number of the aircraft within the year of XX, filled with leading zeroes. YYYY is unique only within the XX year, the same YYYY value may be (and are) given in different years. YYYY is an Air Force wide number, that is all
USAF aircrafts manufactured in a given year are numbered. I don't know in which order the different aircraft types are numbered, but airframes of the same aircraft type are numbered after each other. So if you take a look at our
F-15E serial numbers list, you will notice that YYYY's are most of the time successive values within the same year. The only exception is year 91, when a new lot (lot VII) was introduced and 6 airframes of lot VII were manufactured.
I hope this helped a bit...
