Warbird Information Exchange

QF-16 aerial drone phase I under way

by : AdministratorPublished : Tuesday, June 01 2010 12:14 SHARE | PRINT| EMAIL
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 1 (UPI) -- Boeing has begun work on the first phase of a U.S. Air Force aerial drone contract following the delivery of the first retired F-16 Falcon aircraft.

U.S. company Boeing was selected to lead a team by the Air Force to convert retired F-16 Falcon fighter aircraft into full-scale target drones, referred to as the QF-16 aerial drone, as part of the Air Superiority Target program.

Boeing has begun its initial engineering and manufacturing conversion work under phase one of the QF-16 aerial drone program at the company's Jacksonville, Fla., facility.

The team, which includes defense company BAE Systems, is expected to receive delivery of six of the Air Force's retired F-16s during the program's development phase.

Boeing said in a news release the QF-16 aerial drones will replace the current QF-4s and will be "used as aerial targets for newly developed weapons and tactics" for the Air Force.

The Air Superiority Target will eventually include 126 of the QF-16 drones.

I am only in my 20s but someday I will fly it at airshows. I am getting rich really fast writing software and so I can afford to do really stupid things like put all my money into warbirds.

Well, at least the Viper is good for something.

Yay! Let's spend hundreds of millions of dollars to blow up valuable airplanes that cost tens of millions to begin with!!!
Such waste. These people should be sent to jail. I never truly knew what fraud waste and abuse was until I started watching the military.

I can provide an alternate viewpoint here, having actually shot down an F-4 drone back in 2002 from an F-15E.

As a fighter pilot, we train extensively for weapon employment using electronics and rules-of-thumb to "score" missile and gun hits. This is effective for teaching the mechanics of how to employ weapons against another aircraft, there is simply no substitute for seeing the whole process work in person. The drones are shot down during a program called "Combat Archer", which is designed to test many aspects of weapons, aircraft, and pilots. They take air-to-air missiles which have reached the end of their shelf life and remove the actual warhead, replacing it with a telemetry package that transmits guidance and performance information back to a ground station.

Then, they invite front-line fighter units to Tyndall AFB, who bring combat operational aircraft and pilots to shoot the missiles. This exercises and tests the pilots' ability to operate the weapons systems. It exercises and tests the aircrafts' ability to carry, target, and shoot an actual missile. Finally it tests the missiles' ability to locate a target and track it to a 'kill'.

Three different types of drones are used at Combat Archer: the MQM-107 and Ryan Firebee subscale drones, and the F-4 "full scale" drone. Depending on the missile to be shot and what they are specifically trying to test determines what drone will be used.

In my case, I shot an AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided missile at an F-4, and my missile shot was testing the ability to shoot when the target is performing a certain type of electronic jamming. Since the subscale drones could not carry this particular type of jammer (and since radar target size was a factor) we shot against an F-4.

I can't over-emphasize what a HUGE learning experience it was to shoot an actual missile against an actual target. One of the first things I learned was that, to use some idiomatic language, 'missiles are not laser guns'. What I mean is, shooting a missile does not instantly vaporize your opponent like if you were shooting a laser -- the engagement takes time, and lots of it! It was amazing how much time it took between when my thumb hit the pickle button and when the missile came off the rail (the longest 1.5 seconds ever!). Even more startling was how long a 30-second missile time-of-flight is when you can actually see the other aircraft flying toward you! This effect is even more pronounced for guys who shoot short-range missiles like the AIM-9, when they are actually engaged in a turning dogfight while they lock up and shoot the missile...then have to keep dogfighting as the missile tracks to the target.

Another huge lesson I learned is that missiles are machines and thus open to malfunction. Prior to participating in Combat Archer, I had this strange belief that every time I launched a missile that it would work flawlessly and hit the target. NOT TRUE! I witnessed all manner of malfunctions, from detonations 50 feet in front of the launch aircraft, to guidance fins coming off in flight, to just plain not tracking to the target. I hadn't really contemplated any of these scenarios until I saw them during the exercise. It is much better to experience these learning points under the controlled environment off the coast of the Florida panhandle than it would be in the hostile skies over badguy territory against an enemy that can shoot back.

Yes, it's tragic in a way to destroy warbirds like this...but the experience gained by those who are doing this is immeasurable. If there were an economical way to build a high-performance drone that mimicked the energy, turn rate, IR reflectivity, radar signature, etc, of an actual fighter, I agree that it would be better than shooting down a real warplane.

Unfortunately, there isn't.

I am only in my 20s but someday I will fly it at airshows. I am getting rich really fast writing software and so I can afford to do really stupid things like put all my money into warbirds.

Okay, now just hold up here. No. You are wrong -- dead wrong. Not fraud, waste, OR abuse, but actually a very important and valuable testing and training mechanism.

This comes up every so often on WIX, and I'm constantly surprised how people can have such a narrow minded view toward the construction and use of full-scale aerial drones. The airplanes are NOT wasted. The converted drones have all long since been paid for, served their useful life as the front-line military aircraft they were designed and built for, and aren't doing anyone any good rotting away in the desert once they have been essentially 'used up'. Instead of serving NO value sitting in storage, they serve a GREAT value in testing and training air-to-air weapons.

They are cheaper to convert and shoot down than a hypothetical all new, specially built drone that would have to be designed and built specifically to re-create the performance, radar/visual/electronic/infrared 'signature' of an actual fighter aircraft. Don't forget that an all-new specially-built drone would also have to have a new logistics train and parts supply CREATED just to support it. Wanna talk about waste? That's the definition of it.

Here's my viewpoint as someone who has spent time shooting at full scale drones. Like you, I was initially skeptical of the need to blow away a perfectly good aircraft that could go in a museum or something. Since that time, I've changed my mind completely:



My post doesn't really emphasize the "test" aspect of the WSEP/Archer program, but it is probably of much more significance than simply the training of the pilots. The testing allows actual line-production missiles taken out of actual war-reserve stocks to have their real world performance tested. This obviously has huge benefits for design/construction/production of current and future air-to-air missiles.



Here's the mandatory 'there I was' photo of me shooting an AIM-7MH at a drone in 2002 down at Combat Archer. Not just a cool photo, but an important set of lessons learned. I actually have a relatively long unclassified 'white paper' that I wrote for my squadron's Weapons Journal after shooting at WSEP, which details many of the technical lessons learned from this experience. I'll rummage around in my stuff and see if I can find it and post it...

...you know, just as evidence of how much 'waste, fraud, and abuse' this whole full scale aerial drone thing is!

Yay! Let's spend hundreds of millions of dollars to blow up valuable airplanes that cost tens of millions to begin with!!!
Such waste. These people should be sent to jail. I never truly knew what fraud waste and abuse was until I started watching the military.
On another topic, I was told years ago by a General Dynamics F-16 program engineer that the F-16 was a poor choice as a drone aircraft since the software challenges to patch into the system for unmannned flight were not practical. I guess somebody decided to spend the money anyway.
Now we sit back and wait for announcements of blown budgets and "technical integration issues".
Oh yeah, it also makes complete sense to have boeing as prime contractor instead of Lockheed martin, who not only build the airplanes but have been running the drone program up to now with that knowledge base in house.
I am sure before this thread is ended it will all be Obama's fault.

I am only in my 20s but someday I will fly it at airshows. I am getting rich really fast writing software and so I can afford to do really stupid things like put all my money into warbirds.