SEATTLE, Oct. 22, 1996 -- The U.S. Air Force and The Boeing Company have completed a series of highly successful test flights of the upgraded AGM-86C Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile (Block I CALCM). On Sept. 24, two test missiles launched from a B-52H scored precise hits in destroying a complex of concrete structures. The CALCM provides the Air Force with a conventionally armed, unmanned and self-guided missile that can be used for precision strikes against fixed, high-value targets that are heavily defended or deep behind enemy lines. The first lot of Block I CALCMs was delivered to the Air Force in July 1996. The Block I CALCM is an improved version of the original Block 0 missile first used in Desert Storm and most recently employed in strikes against Iraq. It features significant avionics improvements, including a second-generation Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and software, that double the navigational accuracy of the Block 0 CALCM. The new avionics package also is easily retrofitted into existing Block 0 missiles. (Editor's note: The second missile fired in the testing was the first Block 0 missile retrofitted with the new avionics system. Installation was completed by Air Force field maintenance crews.) Block I CALCMs also incorporate an improved blast fragmentation warhead that significantly increases the weapon's lethality. Additional design changes and manufacturing process improvements allow for the Block I missiles to be produced for one-third the cost of its predecessor. CALCM conversions can now be completed for as little as $150,000 per missile.

"Taken together, these improvements produce a missile that is twice as accurate, has twice the explosive capacity and costs two-thirds less than the Block 0," said Carl Avila, Boeing Air Launched Missiles program manager. "For a low price, we take otherwise surplus air frames and deliver an extremely long-range, highly accurate conventional standoff weapon that can be launched from B-52s based in the continental U.S." CALCM missiles are manufactured by converting surplus AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs). In addition to the current models, efforts are under way to develop a Block II CALCM incorporating a precision GPS approach, steep terminal dive capabilities and an advanced penetrator warhead that will increase the ability of CALCM to penetrate deeply buried targets.

Prior to flight testing, the Block I avionics system was put through an extensive series of laboratory and ground tests at Boeing, including use of a hardware-in-the-loop simulator and installation of the system in a mobile laboratory to verify system accuracy in both static and dynamic environments.

GPS improvements include advanced processing of GPS data to achieve precision strike delivery using only the onboard GPS and inertial navigation elements -- a capability that will be demonstrated in flight tests later this year. Sled testing of a penetrator warhead will be conducted in 1997, with studies of other warhead technologies to follow.

In the mid-1980s, the Air Force awarded a then-classified contract to Boeing to modify a number of AGM-86B (ALCM) missiles to the conventionally armed AGM-86C (CALCM). In 1995 Boeing again was contracted to produce 100 Block I missiles. The CALCM contract order was increased to 200 units in 1996.

The CALCM program is managed by the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. The missile is manufactured by Boeing Defense & Space Group at manufacturing facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The Block I GPS receiver is provided by Interstate Electronics Corp. of Anaheim, Calif. The warhead supplier for the Block 0 and Block I is Aerojet of Rancho Cordova, Calif.