The 127th and, below present plans, final F-16 to be transformed into an optionally-piloted QF-16 full-scale aerial goal has been delivered to the U.S. Air Drive.
Marking the transition from manufacturing to the sustainment part, Boeing Protection has celebrated this milestone supply by releasing brief video that includes interviews with a number of the personnel who’ve labored on this system by way of its 15 12 months historical past. The requirement to transform surplus F-16 Preventing Falcon plane into full-scale aerial targets (FSAT) was drawn up within the mid 2000s, with firms invited to submit their bids for the contract. In 2010, a $69.7 million manufacturing contract was then awarded to Boeing.
The QF-16, as it might be identified, was to interchange the U.S. Air Drive’s shares of QF-4s – transformed F-4 Phantom IIs. A QF-16 took off for the primary time in 2012, with additional testing over the next years ramping up till the declaration of preliminary working functionality (IOC) in 2016. This coincided with the retirement of the QF-4 on the finish of 2016, 19 years after its personal IOC declaration. Utilizing extra trendy expertise in addition to a extra succesful base platform, the QF-16 was designed to inherit as a lot performance from the F-16 as potential, sustaining the flexibility to carry out supersonic flight, pull 9G maneuvers, and fly as much as an altitude of 55,000 toes.
Boeing expects to proceed supporting the QF-16 fleet for a minimum of 5-10 extra years. Although thought-about expendable targets, typically being destroyed in dwell fireplace workout routines, FSATs additionally carry out non-destructive aerial goal duties and could be re-used as many instances as needed. The QF-16 is the one FSAT in U.S. service, although the Division of Protection additionally has expansive shares of smaller purpose-built goal drones just like the BQM-167A and BQM-177A.
Proper on the right track.
The QF-16 makes its ultimate supply to the @USAirForce. Hear from #TeamBoeing workers how retired F-16s are remodeled into superior aerial targets for the U.S. army and allies, and what’s subsequent for this system. pic.twitter.com/571fuVLBDR
— Boeing Protection (@BoeingDefense) December 4, 2025
The final plane to roll out of Boeing’s conversion amenities, sporting the code QF-127, was serial quantity 83-1079. Delivered in 1984 as an F-16A, the airframe is recorded as having arrived into the care of the 309th Aerospace Upkeep And Regeneration Group, or AMARG, at Davis-Monthan Air Drive Base in January 2007. Its final unit as an operational fighter was the North Dakota Air Nationwide Guard’s 178th Fighter Squadron, often known as ‘the Glad Hooligans’. Whilst a transformed QF-16, ‘Roughrider Nation’ and ‘North Dakota’ markings are nonetheless seen on the fuselage as fading references to its earlier residence.
309th AMARG celebrated the plane’s departure with a put up on social media on Nov. 21, 2025.
Preliminary QF-16 conversions had been accomplished at Cecil Airport in Jacksonville, Florida. Boeing subsequently opened a second conversion line at Davis-Monthan itself in 2020, that means surplus plane from the AMARG ‘Boneyard’ storage facility might obtain the mandatory upgrades on web site. The Florida line was then closed in 2022. Operational QF-16s are in service with the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron, primarily headquartered at Tyndall AFB, Florida, with a detachment at Holloman AFB, New Mexico.
QF-16 Conversion
Conversion to QF-16 commonplace often takes round six months to finish. The plane’s radar and cannon have often already been eliminated throughout preparation for long run storage at AMARG. Ballast is added on the entrance to compensate for the lacking radar, whereas the void left by the removing of the M61 Vulcan 20 mm cannon is used to accommodate a smoke-generating Visible Augmentation System which could be activated to help with sighting the plane at lengthy distances or to mark its simulated destruction. The ACES II ejection seat system is retained to permit the plane to nonetheless be flown from the cockpit when required.
An Computerized Flight Management Laptop (AFCC) is put in together with techniques to permit distant management of the plane. New antennas are added to every wing, the nostril, and the tail fin for the Vector Scoring System (VSS) which tracks incoming missiles and produces information concerning accuracy and likelihood of kill (Pk) based mostly on the identified efficiency of proximity-fused warheads.
Explosive fees are fitted close to the centre of every QF-16’s fuselage, appearing as a flight termination system (FTS) to be used when flight management is misplaced both attributable to gear malfunction or if an airframe remains to be sustaining flight after vital harm. The FTS was designed and examined on an actual F-16 airframe to make sure full purposeful destruction of the plane inside a determinable vary security footprint.
Via the years, QF-16s have been focused by an array of anti-aircraft missiles, together with AIM-9 Sidewinders, AIM-120 AMRAAMs, FIM-92 Stingers, and even the newest AIM-260 JATMs. A quantity have been destroyed within the course of.
Whether or not the lengthy historical past of changing manned fighters into goal drones continues into the long run – maybe with extra, newer F-16s as they develop into accessible – stays to be seen. As drones develop into extra superior, succesful and ever extra prevalent, the requirement for plane conversions just like the QF-16 is quickly eroding away.
