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irmen of the 494th Fighter Squadron deployed to Southwest Asia from RAF Lakenheath, Britain, flew 972 combat sorties and became the first unit to employ the Small Diameter Bomb in combat. And, that’s not all. The F-15E Strike Eagle unit also was first to employ new mission planning software. The unit covered both Afghanistan (82 missions) and Iraq (890 missions) during its four-month deployment that began just as Air Combat Command officially declared the SDB initially operational.
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.
