Making a Good Thing More Versatile: Boeing officials say that the company has successfully tested its laser version of the Joint Direct Attack Munition. The Laser JDAM launched by a USAF F-16 flying at 20,000 feet “scored a direct hit on an armored personnel carrier moving at 25 mph,” states a company release. All that’s needed to turn a standard GPS/inertial navigation system-guided JDAM into an LJDAM is to install a modular kit on the front end—right in the field. Boeing expects to complete development of the 500-pound LJDAM this year and could begin production in early 2007.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
