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Friday, May 30, 2014

Target Drones or Drones With Targets

Strategypage notes the possibility of turning surplus F-16s into combat UAVs for high threat environment missions:

There is an effort underway to develop a UAV version of the F-16. This would be based on the QF-16, the remotely controlled target version of the F-16. The air force is already in the process of converting 210 retired F-16s to QF-16s and it was noted that with a little extra work the QF-16 could be turned into a combat UAV for dangerous missions like SEAD (suppression of enemy defenses) or attacking ground targets guarded by heavy air defenses.

As I noted the last time they addressed the issue, I'll note that Israel has some surplus A-4s.

This could be important if you are thinking outside the box over Israel's capacity to strike Iran's nuclear infrastructure.