Air Force Taps Raytheon to Build New Smart Bomb for F-35 | Military.com: "The U.S. Air Force has awarded a nearly $60 million contract to Raytheon Co. to integrate a new laser-guided smart bomb -- the GBU-49 Enhanced Paveway II -- onto the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter.
The contract includes 1,200 guidance kits for the munition -- designed to strike moving targets -- as well as test hardware, logistics and engineering support and technical data, the Air Force said in a release on Friday.
"The F-35 is operational and combat ready, and integrating the GBU-49 with the aircraft makes the F-35 even more lethal than it already is," Brig. Gen. Todd Canterbury, director of the Air Force F-35 Integration Office, said in the release.
Raytheon's Paveway II would enable the F-35 to strike moving targets when integrated with the aircraft's software Block 3F, which is scheduled to be incorporated onto the aircraft in 2018."
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