The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Sandia National Laboratories announced Thursday it conducted a flight test of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb on an F-35 aircraft in August.
The flight tests took place at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, with aircraft generation from Hill Air Force Base in Utah, a press release from Sandia said. The August tests “yielded positive results” as F-35 aircraft carried and dropped the nuclear gravity bomb “successfully,” and were the only B61-12 stockpile flight tests to include joint assemblies on an F-35 aircraft, the release added.
“These B61-12 F-35A stockpile flight tests and captive carry flight test were the capstone accomplishment of a tremendous amount of planning and effort by those who were involved across not only Sandia, but many other agencies,” Jeffrey Boyd, Sandia’s surveillance lead for the B61-12 and B61-13, said in the press release. “In addition, these B61-12 stockpile flight tests represent the completion of the most B61-12 flight testing surveillance scope in a year to date and the most in a given year for the foreseeable future.”
NNSA completed its last production unit for the B61-12 in December, before transitioning to life extension program sustainment in February.
The B61-12 life extension began in 2008, and the gravity bomb itself is the oldest in the U.S. arsenal, with over 50 years of service. The NNSA coordinated with the Air Force to deliver the last production unit three years after the first production unit, which was produced in November 2021. Currently, the B61 family of bombs is deployed from the U.S. Air Force and NATO bases, NNSA has said. The Royal Air Force as of July was also to buy 12 new Lockheed Martin F-35A fighters certified as capable of carrying both conventional munitions and the gravity bomb, allowing the service to join NATO’s nuclear mission.