Technicians at the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., are on track to finish the final conversion of a retired F-4 fighter into a target drone around mid-February, according to a base release. This aircraft will be the 316th F-4 converted to a remotely controlled QF-4 full-scale aerial target since the AMARG began these regenerations in 2001, states the Jan. 25 release. The Air Force is transitioning from the QF-4 to the QF-16 as its full-scale aerial target drone. The last QF-4s will support Army ground-to-air training at Holloman AFB, N.M., and air-to-air combat training at Tyndall AFB, Fla., states the release. An F-4 conversion takes an average of 9,000 man hours—about 277 calendar days—to complete, according to the release. (Davis-Monthan report by A1C Josh Slavin) (See also Three-Hundredth QF-4 Delivered.)
Bell Textron has won DARPA's contest for a no-runway, high-speed drone that will prove out technologies useful for special operations forces and possibly the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept. Bell's design converts a tiltrotor to a jet-powered aircraft able to fly at up to 450 knots.