The Air Force’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile extended-range variant is now available to B-1B bomber crews to use in combat, announced officials at Dyess AFB, Texas. The base, home to the B-1s of the 7th Bomb Wing, received its first batch of JASSM-ER production missiles in March 2014. The declaration that the JASSM-ER is available for combat operations followed in early December, according to the base’s March 9 release. Weeks later, the Air Force approved the missile for full-rate production. JASSM-ER boasts roughly two and a half times the range of the baseline JASSM, meaning some 500 nautical miles. The B-1 is the only platform cleared to carry the extended-range version; the Air Force has integrated the baseline variant on B-2As, B-52Hs, F-16s, and F-15Es.
RTX’s Raytheon unit was able to “significantly” extend the range of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile using mostly software changes in experimental tests last year, expanding the reach and lethality of the standard U.S. dogfighting weapon, company officials said Sept. 15.
