A small silhouette of a Excessive-speed Anti-Radiation Missile might be seen painted under the cockpit on this new picture launched by CENTCOM, indicating that the jet was probably answerable for destroying an Iranian air defence web site.
The small however clear marking nearly definitely denotes a direct hit towards an Iranian air defence radar web site or floor to air missile unit. Utilizing the AGM-88 Excessive-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM), an plane is ready to lock on on to and launch towards the supply of hostile radar emissions.
Computer systems on board the plane are in a position to categorise the emissions based mostly on recognized radar working frequencies and traits – essential information gathered by platforms just like the RC-135U Fight Despatched.
A pleasant shot of an American AGM-88 HARM launch from a Su-27S1M of the 39 BrTA.The HARM works like this: passive homing on radar emissions from an air-defence radar, or — in trendy variants — INS/GPS steering for an strategy by coordinates and a home-on-jam mode.1/ pic.twitter.com/xCvOggKDzx
— 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝕯𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝕯𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔱△ 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇺🇲🇬🇷 (@TheDeadDistrict) November 3, 2025
The picture reveals F-16C Combating Falcon 00-0226 working over an undisclosed Center Jap location carrying dwell air to air munitions. An AIM-120 AMRAAM is loaded on every wingtip station, with the subsequent stations inwards carrying AIM-9X Sidewinders. Apart from the exterior gasoline tank, the remainder of the loadout below the starboard wing is obscured by a LITENING focusing on pod.
Reverse the LITENING pod is, notably, a HARM Focusing on System (HTS), which means the obscured pylon might have carried a HARM. An empty ejector rack might be seen on the port wing, indicating that the jet was both coming back from a dwell sortie and had expended its air to floor weapons when pictured or had merely not had these eliminated when the plane was generated for a special sortie.
A U.S. Air Drive F-16 fighter jet flies in airspace over the Center East. U.S. forces throughout the area stay mission prepared. pic.twitter.com/Fh6Q2z6nBG
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) Might 9, 2026
Because the picture was launched by way of social media channels there isn’t any embedded metadata which might inform us when precisely the picture was taken and, particularly, whether or not it’s from earlier than the U.S.-Iran ceasefire. Regardless of the ceasefire, which the U.S. maintains continues to be in power, U.S. navy plane launched airstrikes on Might. 7 focusing on “Iranian navy amenities answerable for attacking U.S. forces”.
Combined loadouts with HARMs mounted alongside guided bombs have been seen in use in different launched pictures. Utilizing one of these loadout would nearly definitely have change into extra widespread within the later phases of Operation Epic Fury, after the vast majority of devoted SEAD (suppression of enemy air defences) missions had already been flown.
USAF F-16CMs from the 480th Fighter Squadron, “Warhawks,” heading out from Jordan on a Wild Weasel SAM looking mission over Iran. pic.twitter.com/wXdvN9Kly6
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 8, 2026
Sending jets into fight with a single HARM permits for them to undertake SEAD if a resistant pocket of air defence functionality is encountered, however concurrently frees up the plane as a extra generalized asset for different kinds of anti-surface strikes.
79th Fighter Squadron
Although we will’t be 100% sure which unit the jet was being operated by on the time – with the huge numbers of fight plane at present deployed to the Center East, there may be lots of scope for pooling airframes between models – it carries the markings of the 79th Fighter Squadron, based mostly with the twentieth Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Drive Base, South Carolina.
The 79th FS is a specialist unit for SEAD, taking up the position after receiving its first F-16s in 1994. Relationship from 1918, the unit is likely one of the most historic within the U.S. Air Drive, by its historical past working plane just like the P-38 Lightning, P-51 Mustang, F-100 Tremendous Sabre, and the F-111 Aardvark.
Let’s delve into archives. How about some F-111’s?
67-0120/UH F-111E twentieth TFW, 79th TFS, RAF Higher Heyford. Marked as “The Chief”. Commander’s plane of the twentieth TFW. Now preserved on the American Air Museum at Duxford. Which I shot at RAF Finningley, September 1993. pic.twitter.com/3MzSWiZvnb
— stuart freer (@stuartfreer1) August 26, 2019
With the Aardvark, based mostly at RAF Higher Heyford, the unit took half in a crucial 1985 train codenamed Operation Ghost Rider. This simulated strike sortie towards a goal throughout the Atlantic in Canada was the truth is a dry rehearsal for Operation El Dorado Canyon, which might be flown towards Libya by F-111s from RAF Lakenheath the next yr.
In 1961, the 79th took the lead in forming what’s now generally known as the NATO Tiger Affiliation. This group of squadrons from NATO air arms was shaped to advertise group and camaraderie between NATO air crews. The operating theme for every unit is the usage of a tiger, or tiger stripes, as a part of their identification. The 79th FS’ tiger stripes might be seen of their fin marking. Annually, the affiliation gathers for a ‘Tiger Meet’, comprising each workout routines and networking.
🐅✈️ The NATO Tiger Meet isn’t nearly stripes.Since 1961, Allied air forces have educated facet by facet, constructing cohesion, belief & interoperability.
👉 Custom + coaching = stronger skies. pic.twitter.com/8Gd99DvyXR
— NATO Air Command (@NATO_AIRCOM) October 1, 2025
79th Squadron jets aren’t any strangers to Center East deployments, and repeatedly rotate out and in of the area each few years.
