A second Air Force unit is experiencing the “new” F-15E Strike Eagle, with the addition of the Small Diameter Bomb and Suite 5 hardware and software upgrades. The 391st Fighter Squadron at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, is joining the 494th FS at RAF Lakenheath, Britain, as operators of newly upgraded F-15Es. “It’s a completely different aircraft,” Capt. Drew Perry, 391st FS plans chief, told Air Force journalist MSgt. Brian Orban. Perry calls the SDB a “very precise, surgical weapon.” As to Suite 5, Perry says, “The ability to confirm targets is incredible.”
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
