Special Operations C-130 Hits Target With A ‘Rapid Dragon’ Pallet-Dropped Cruise Missile (Updated)
Rapid Dragon is intended to offer a way to quickly turn cargo planes into launch platforms for cruise missiles and potentially other payloads.
Rapid Dragon is intended to offer a way to quickly turn cargo planes into launch platforms for cruise missiles and potentially other payloads.
The concept of arming airlifters with cruise missiles is evolving quickly, which is a big deal for the Air Force, and possibly other air arms as well.
The ability to launch Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles could give the modified Polish transport aircraft a role in higher-end conflicts.
Advanced network capabilities were key to the most recent test of an MC-130J special operations transport plane transformed into a missile truck.
The powered JSOW variant had been intended, in part, as a long-range stand-off weapon that the Navy’s F-35Cs could still carry internally.
The configuration is intended to allow the flexible Strike Eagle to fill in for bombers on certain missions.
The event also saw F-35 Joint Strike Fighters helping to pass vital information between Air Force and Army air and missile defense units.
The Air Force is exploring how B-1Bs and B-52Hs can work together more directly, including targeting “handoffs” involving stealthy cruise missiles.
The Air Force hopes its B-1s will eventually be able to carry up to a dozen of the missiles, and potentially hypersonic weapons, on external pylons.
The test was part of a larger set of experiments centered on improving the service’s communications and data-sharing networks.