Lockheed Martin and the Air Force recently completed a series of captive-carry flight tests of the company’s Long Range Anti-Ship Missile design on a B-1 bomber, announced the company. The tests, which took place off the southern California coast, supported preparations for the planned first release and free flight of LRASM later this year, states the company’s July 11 release. “Collecting telemetry data while flying in the B-1B bomb bay significantly reduces risk ahead of the first launch,” said Mike Fleming, Lockheed Martin’s LRASM air launch program manager. “Initial assessments indicate the missile performed as expected,” he said. The company is developing LRASM—a variant of its JASSM stealthy cruise missile—under DARPA and Navy sponsorship. (See also Let Us Compete.)
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. may have moved on from Air Force Chief of Staff to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but he is keeping an eye on the Air Force’s effort to “re-optimize for great power competition”—and is pleased by what he sees. At a Defense Writers Group meeting March…