Integration on the F-16C/D Viper is still planned, in part to support NATO nuclear sharing commitments, as well. These aircraft presently are not approved to carry any nuclear gravity bombs, owing to their vulnerability to increasingly more capable air defenses, and look set to only carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles in the immediate future. It's unclear if the Air Force's nuclear-capable B-52 bombers will ever be certified to carry this weapon. It says it did the same with regards to the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber in June. In March, Sandia had also announced that it had demonstrated that the B61-12 was fully-compatible with the F-15E Strike Eagle. The Air Force declined to provide an updated timeline to The War Zone in response to a query earlier this year, citing 'operational security reasons.' Especially given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it seems unlikely now that the Air Force's Joint Strike fighters will be certified to carry this weapon before sometime next year, at the earliest. The goal is for the full flight test series involving the F-35A to also 'conclude with full-weapon systems demonstrations designed to increase confidence the bomb will always work when needed and never under any other circumstances.' It's not clear when this test program might finally wrap up, but back in 2017, reports had said that the goal was to have the B61-12 integrated onto the F-35A by the end of this year. The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) released photos of some of those initial flight tests in June, before they pulled them offline. There have been other flight tests involving inert B61-12s loaded on F-35As since as least 2019. You can see a rare video tour montage of the range in this previous post of ours. The range is a secretive site nestled in the northwestern end of the sprawling Nevada Test and Training Range and it has been used for various kinds of nuclear weapons testing, as well as other sensitive research and development and test and evaluation activities, over the years. The press release from Sandia said that the supersonic test had taken place over the Tonopah Test Range on Aug. Sandia has also released first-of-its-kind video footage of one of these test sorties, which involved the first-ever release of an inert version of this weapon from an internal bomb bay on a plane flying faster than the speed of sound and that also provides an unprecedented look at the bomb's rocket spin stabilization system. Air Force, recently completed a round of flight tests as part of the integration of the new B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb onto the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter. Sandia National Laboratories, in cooperation with the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S.

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