Pharewell robo-Phantoms
Flight Global reports the last 22 QF-4 Phantom aerial targets, currently part of the 53rd Wing’s Detachment 1, 82 Aerial Targets Sqn, based at Holloman AFB will be out of service by the end of 2016.
When they are expended, they will end the U.S. military’s 58 year love affair with the big smoky J79-engined F-4 whose first flight was 27 May 1958.
Which in the end is rather poetic.