Fighter Jet News
F-16 Fighting Falcon News
Test missile fired at QF-16
August 26, 2014 (by
Katie Perdaris and Lorenzo Cortes) -
On a dry, clear summer morning, Michael Macwilliam readied the QF-16 aerial target for its first live fire test.
Macwilliam is no stranger to the F-16. "I flew F-16s my whole career, since 1985," said Macwilliam. He now works for Boeing on the QF-16 program, which modified six F-16s to fly unmanned as aerial targets.
Macwilliam is responsible for getting the jet ready to fly unmanned, and this time ground-to-air missiles were fired at the jet.
"It’s a 4th generation aerial target. The F-16 is much more maneuverable. It can provide our customers with an aerial target that’s got more capabilities," said Macwilliam.
QF-16 Chief Engineer, Paul Cejas, said the aircraft is designed to gather data and report back to the shooter.
“The QF-16’s mission is really to act as a target and validate weapons systems. So, we do have a scoring system on the airplane and its job is to tell us basically how close the missile came and its trajectory."
The ground control station sets the coordinates for the missile. Then, using its on board system, the QF-16 validates that the missile hit those coordinates, and detects the distance and speed of the missile. If all the data matches up, the mission is considered a "kill".
The missile passes above the pilotless QF-16 during testing at White Sands Missile Range. [Boeing photo]
Macwilliam is responsible for getting the jet ready to fly unmanned, and this time ground-to-air missiles were fired at the jet.
"It’s a 4th generation aerial target. The F-16 is much more maneuverable. It can provide our customers with an aerial target that’s got more capabilities," said Macwilliam.
QF-16 Chief Engineer, Paul Cejas, said the aircraft is designed to gather data and report back to the shooter.
“The QF-16’s mission is really to act as a target and validate weapons systems. So, we do have a scoring system on the airplane and its job is to tell us basically how close the missile came and its trajectory."
The ground control station sets the coordinates for the missile. Then, using its on board system, the QF-16 validates that the missile hit those coordinates, and detects the distance and speed of the missile. If all the data matches up, the mission is considered a "kill".
Courtesy of Boeing
Additional images:
USAF QF-16A block 15 #83-1110 Full Scale Aerial Target from the 82nd ATRS flies over the Gulf of Mexico during its first unmanned flight at Tyndall AFB on September 19th, 2013. [USAF photo by MSgt J. Scott Wilcox]
Related articles:
Forum discussion:
Tags
- Brains behind the QF-16 spearhead AF aerial target drone program (2013-11-07)
- Boeing QF-16 Aerial Target completes 1st pilotless flight (2013-09-23)
- QF-16 arrives for testing, advances 53rd WEG mission (2012-11-20)
- First QF-16 arrives at Tyndall AFB (2012-11-19)
- F-16 Fighting Falcon news archive
Forum discussion:
- Start a discussion about this article in the F-16.net forum.
Tags