The Small Diameter Bomb, a satellite-guided, 250-pound class munition, passes its first live weapons tests. Carried aboard an F-15E Strike Eagle at 15,000 feet, the SDB successfully strikes a scoring board at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Two days later, in its second test, the SDB destroys a Russian rocket launcher.
A new Navy missile could fill a long-range air-to-air need for the U.S. Air Force’s fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation fighters. The Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for munitions posted information on the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile online on Aug. 22, the same day it unveiled the project at the service’s…