Airmen with the 86th Munitions Squadron at Ramstein AB, Germany, led a team last month that upgraded the base’s stock of AGM-65 Maverick H- and K-model air-to-ground missiles. They installed a new software circuit card in the missiles’ guidance control section to make the missiles more accurate. The change will also give pilots an in-flight abort option “so they can, at the last minute, hit abort and the missile will veer off,” said SSgt. Nicholas Dillenbeck of the 86th MUNS. The H model is a blast-fragmentation version of the Maverick. The K model is a penetrator variant. Ramstein has no fighters, but stores the Mavericks since it is a major airlift hub and the AGM-65s can readily be sent from there to the combat theater. The Air Force plans to update more than 2,000 of these Mavericks by July 2011. (Ramstein report by SrA. Amanda Dick)
The rate of building B-21 bombers would speed up if the fiscal 2026 defense budget passes. But it remains unclear how much capacity would be added, and whether the Air Force would simply build the bombers faster, or buy more.
