Target Acquired: QF-16 Provides Realistic Training and Testing

By Master Sgt. Brian Ferguson,Airman Magazine

For decades the F-16 Fighting Falcon was the world’s premier fighter jet.  Small, maneuverable and fast, it has been used for air-to-air operations and air-to-ground operations.  Even today, with its current upgrades, it is one of the world’s most advanced fighters.

This is why they are blowing them up.

In a small compound on the edge of the flightline at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, retired military maintainers from the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group are pulling retired F-16s from the bone yard and turning them into almost new QF-16s in as little as 18 days.

ENLARGE
Maintainers at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., refurbish an F-16 Fighting Falcon to be fly worthy before flying to Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Fl. to be converted into a QF-16 unmanned aerial target.PHOTO // TECH. SGT. PERRY ASTON

Lt. Col. Martin Meyer, 309th AMARG director of flight test, said that the mission here has been going on for 50 years.

“The Air Force has always had a need for a full scale aerial target to practice and succeed with missile testing,” he said.  “So we have flown what we call optionally-manned aircraft going all the way back to the F-100 (Super Sabre) in the late fifties…through the F-4 (Phantom II) which we used for a lot of years up until now, the F-16, which we designate the QF-16.”

The QF-16s are pulled from the 309th AMARG and rebuilt to become airworthy and flyable as functional test aircraft.  They are then sent to a Boeing facility, at Cecil Field near Jacksonville, Florida, where they install an optionally manned package on them. The aircraft can be flown just like a normal F-16 fighter with a pilot in the cockpit, or remotely.