A second Air Force unit is experiencing the “new” F-15E Strike Eagle, with the addition of the Small Diameter Bomb and Suite 5 hardware and software upgrades. The 391st Fighter Squadron at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, is joining the 494th FS at RAF Lakenheath, Britain, as operators of newly upgraded F-15Es. “It’s a completely different aircraft,” Capt. Drew Perry, 391st FS plans chief, told Air Force journalist MSgt. Brian Orban. Perry calls the SDB a “very precise, surgical weapon.” As to Suite 5, Perry says, “The ability to confirm targets is incredible.”
House lawmakers unveiled a new reconciliation package July 15 with $60 billion for defense, $290 billion less than the Pentagon has been seeking, a day after a Senate vote to advance the annual defense policy bill failed—developments that show the perilous state of the Pentagon’s ambitious plans for fiscal 2027.