Boeing announced Monday that its industry team developing a small diameter bomb II offering for the Air Force concluded a 42-month risk-reduction phase on Sept. 29. This phase concluded with a flight test of its SDB II design that, dropped from an F-15E at Eglin AFB, Fla., successfully tracked a moving target, as planned, and then struck a separate stationary target and detonated, as intended, Boeing spokesman Tim Deaton told the Daily Report Monday. “Bottom line, our weapon system has proven itself, and when this capability is available to the warfighter it will help transform the battlefield,” said Debra Rub, vice president of Boeing’s weapons programs. Boeing’s team, which, includes Lockheed Martin, is competing against Raytheon for the rights to supply the Air Force with the bomb, which is meant to attack moving surface targets. The Air Force aims to pick the winner around March 2010.
The U.S. thwarted a drone attack on U.S. forces at Al Asad air base in western Iraq on April 22, marking the first time that American troops have been targeted since February, U.S. officials said. “We can confirm it was an attack on Al Asad,” a defense official told Air & Space…