Drone No More: The End of the QF-4 by Mark Munzel

It’s called the "blaze of glory:" a fireball above the Gulf of Mexico, south of Tyndall Air Force Base on the Florida panhandle, that marks the demise of another QF-4 Phantom full-scale aerial target (FSAT). Since 1997, QF-4 drones have regularly fallen into the Gulf after being shredded by air-to-air missile warheads. However, these explosions are becoming less common as the US Air Force’s inventory of QF-4s runs out. And once it’s gone, one of the greatest US jet fighters will be all but extinct in the skies of its home country.

Long-time Fence Check visitors know that the site has a soft spot for Phabulous Phantoms – even when they’re being shot down. We described the QF-4 program in this 2008 article. The Air Force received 318 Phantom drones, beginning with ex-F-4G Wild Weasels and progressing through the gun-nosed F-4Es to the RF-4C recon variant. The last regenerated QF-4 drone was delivered to Tyndall's 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron (ATRS) in late 2013 -- and went to a watery grave last August.

To learn more about the end of the last US Phantoms, Fence Check visited Tyndall AFB during Phancon 2014, hosted last October by the . At the time, the 82nd had just 12 QF-4s left. Tyndall’s "Death Row" was no longer lined with grey and orange Phantoms awaiting their final flights. Instead, just eight QF-4s were present, including a couple of "manned fliers" visiting from the 82nd’s section of the main Tyndall ramp.

Death Row will be filled again in the future by the USAF’s replacement FSAT – but more on that later.

Tyndall’s drones are used primarily to support the Combat Archer program, in which line airmen from US and allied fighter squadrons build and load live air-to-air missiles that line pilots flying line jets use to shoot down real aircraft – either QF-4s or subscale drones. In addition to being an excellent training experience for the personnel involved, Combat Archer generates reliability data for US aerial weapons, helping to ensure that they’ll perform as expected in actual combat. Tyndall’s QF-4s also pull target banners for aerial gunnery practice and act as "Raptor bait" in dissimilar air combat training with based F-22s.

Last fall, the 82nd still operated several QF-4Es in USAF heritage paint schemes, including two in the 1960s-era SEA scheme, one in wrap-around European One camouflage, and one in an all-grey Air Defence scheme. These QF-4Es are the squadron’s preferred manned fliers; while most drones fly only a few times before being shot down, the small pool of manned aircraft has racked up thousands of proficiency and chase flights. The jets also took part in the USAF’s Heritage Flight program, flying alongside warbirds and current fighters. However, the 82nd does not expect to rejoin the Heritage Flight program in the post-sequestration era, and the heritage aircraft were looking faded and weathered in late 2014.

The 82nd’s new ride will be the QF-16 Falcon. Six orange-tailed developmental examples were delivered to Tyndall starting in November 2012; one has already been shot down to prove the new drone can be killed. Other Vipers, still wearing the markings of the Air National Guard units they served with before retirement, are being used for chase and familiarization flights before proceeding to Jacksonville, Florida to become the first production QF-16s.

Currently, each QF-16 conversion costs over $5 million, twice as much as a QF-4. However, the conversion cost will come down as drone production ramps up, and the USAF will save by leveraging the F-16’s existing logistics tail, qualified trades, and pilots. Besides, the USAF has no choice but to continue with F-16 conversions: there are simply no more suitable QF-4s left at AMARG. F-4 veterans and aviation enthusiasts may feel the same way about the QF-16 as F-14 Tomcat aficionados felt about the F/A-18F Super Hornet ten years ago, but progress cannot be stopped. And just as with the F/A-18F versus the F-14, feelings don’t do justice to the greater capabilities of the new aircraft over the old.

QF-4 operations at Tyndall will end in June of this year. The squadron intends to shoot down all but two of its remaining QF-4s, including most of the heritage QF-4Es, before then. The surviving jets, both configured to pull target banners, will join Detachment 1 of the 82nd ATRS, at Holloman AFB in New Mexico, which will continue to fly Phantoms until the end of FY2016. And then, almost sixty years after the F-4’s first flight, military Phantoms will truly become phantoms in US skies.

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