Unique photographs show U.S. F-15E carrying B61 JTA mock nuclear bombs during tests at Nellis AFB

December 30, 2015 Military Aviation, Weapons
David Cenciotti
Image credit: Eric Bowen

You don’t happen to see an aircraft carrying two dummy nuclear bombs very often.

As we reported in July 2015, the U.S. Air Force is conducting a series of test drops, in Nevada, of the latest LEP (Life-Extention Program) upgrade to the B61 line of nuclear weapons: the B61-12.

These tests involve F-15E Strike Eagles of the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, as shown in the accompanying photos taken in the early morning hours of Oct. 20, 2015, by The Aviationist‘s contributor Eric Bowen.

F-15E nuke take off
As you can see the F-15E carries two bright orange B61-12 Joint Test Assemblies (JTA) as it is leaving Nellis AFB: noteworthy, the two devices are not quite identical to one another both in overall color pattern, and more interestingly, the tips of each JTA appears to be different.

As Bowen reported in an email to The Aviationist, the Strike Eagle and its unarmed chase plane returned to Nellis AFB approximately 2 hours later with only 1 of the dummy bombs still on board.

F-15E nuke landing
The Life Extension Program or LEP, will replace the B61 -3, -4, -7, and -10 mods, with the -12 that, along with the B83, will become the only remaining gravity delivered nukes in the inventory.

The LEP increases the B61’s accuracy so much that it will have the same capability against hardened targets as the much more powerful weapons it is replacing.

About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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2 Comments

  1. Well, it may be me, but integrating a version of the JDAM kit to an existing iron bomb (let it be nuclear or not), change a casing and some switches does NOT cost 25 mils. I see some “company dividend” paid by the government here rather than anything else.

    Talking about the poor people… till the people do not understand that it costs several times less building schools and drilling water-pits (basically giving a future to the people) than searching for insurgents with fighter-bombers, people will die, emigrate, invade, create unrest, terrorism, taxes will be wasted and there is very little any magical weapon can do against them. Maybe that’s exactly what government are after…

  2. You seem to not see that there are the ones who benefit more, much more and the ones who benefit less… much less.
    For the average blue collar…is it worth the expense? At least questionable, right?

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