The 
Air Force has employed the Small Diameter Bomb for the first time in Afghanistan. An F-15E Strike Eagle deployed to Bagram Air Base from the 391st Fighter Squadron at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, dropped the GPS-aided GBU-39B on a close air support mission on Jan. 27 to aid International Security Assistance Forces under attack by enemy fighters. “The [joint terminal attack controller] asked us to drop that specific weapon on that specific spot, and that’s what we did,” said Wrangler, one of the F-15E’s two-person crewmembers. An Air Force release notes, “The enemy stopped fighting and retreated.”
The advanced F-47 sixth-generation fighter remains on track to fly in the next two years, the senior Air Force acquisition officer overseeing the program said Feb. 25, as the service continues on its ambitious schedule to debut the air superiority-focused fighter by 2028—only three years after the contract was awarded…
