Later this month the Air Force plans the next flight test of its stealthy JASSM cruise missile. (See above.) The exercise will be the last of three Product Upgrade Verification flight tests before USAF embarks on a series of 16 flights in February to characterize the reliability of the missile, which remains under scrutiny for faulty performance in earlier tests. The upcoming PUV flight will build upon a mission last October—the first of the three PUV tests—by “incorporating corrective actions to the navigation anomaly encountered during the first half of that flight and testing the missile in a GPS jamming environment,” the Air Force tells the Daily Report. Like the October flight, the missile in the upcoming test will feature the new “Trimble-based GPS receiver” that will be incorporated into production missiles starting with lot 6, USAF says.
The six-week government shutdown did not affect the hours flown by Air Force pilots, a service spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine—avoiding what could have been a major blow at a time when flying hours are already lower than they have been in decades.
