As noted here several months ago, the Air Force awarded a contract and has now begun refurbishing boneyard F-16s to create new target aircraft.
An AF.mil article documents the efforts by maintainers at the boneyard at Davis-Monthan, where the aircraft are kept in “recoverable storage.” According to the report, three F-16s are already at Boeing for conversion, with three more shortly to follow.
Reuters notes the tensions between common phrases and those who want to control the semantics.
The US Air Force has made a concerted effort to change the lexicon of Predators, Reapers, and other air vehicles that do not have humans onboard. While traditionally called “UAVs,” or “Unmanned Air Vehicles,” the Air Force is now attempting to popularize the term “RPV,” or “Remotely Piloted Vehicle.” (See, for example, this official Air Force article which exclusively uses the term “RPV.”) The intent is to accurately convey the make up of the weapon system:
The change is significant to the Air Force as it recruits a new generation of pilots who may spend little time inside a jet plane. It wants the world to know that humans have “positive control over these vehicles,” [Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley] said.
Unfortunately, the Air Force might become a victim of its own insistence on correct characterization. For example, it is true that the Predator Read more