New Small Diameter Bomb Doesn’t Fit Inside Marine’s F-35B

by Kris Osborn on March 4, 2015

Joint Strike Fighter engineers will have to make adjustments to the weapons bay of the Marine Corps variant of the F-35 so the aircraft can carry a pin point glide bomb by 2022, JSF program officials said.

The Small Diameter Bomb II, or SDB II, can acquire and track moving targets from distances up to 40 miles and is slated to enter service by 2017. However, while the weapon can be integrated into the Air Force’s F-35A variant, the new weapon cannot fit into the current configuration of the Corps’ F-35B short-take-off-and-landing variant of the JSF, F-35 program officials acknowledged.

JSF officials said the SDB II was not intended to integrate onto the Marine Corps variant before 2022 and therefore “not an issue or problem.” However, the changes will require modifications to the internal weapons bay before it can be integrated.

The JSF program says the program is waiting to make these modifications because the SDB II is a developmental weapon and there may be other adjustments needed to the internal weapons bay to accommodate other future weapons, JSF officials explained.

More:

http://defensetech.org/2015/03/04/new-small-diameter-bomb-doesnt-fit-inside-marines-f-35b/#more-24634

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