QF-16 Zombie Vipers To Keep Flying And Dying Into The 2030s

By The War Zone | Created at 2025-03-03 17:36:08 | Updated at 2025-03-04 08:36:58 15 hours ago

The U.S. Air Force expects to continue utilizing QF-16 Full Scale Aerial Target (FSAT) drones converted from F-16 Vipers fighters through at least 2035 despite moving in recent years to wind the program down. The “Zombie Vipers” provide valuable full-size fighter targets for testing and training purposes, including to fire live missiles at and even destroy. The service has been looking to acquire new stealthy uncrewed aircraft to meet its future FSAT needs, but has not yet made any substantial progress in this regard.

The Air Force “currently plans to utilize the QF-16 into the 2030s,” a service spokesperson told TWZ. “The sustainment effort maintains the fleet’s airworthiness and compliance with range safety requirements.”

The sustainment effort in question is one that first emerged in a contracting notice the Air Force posted online earlier this month.

“The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) USAF F-16 Contracting Branch (WAMKA) is pursuing the award of an indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity type contract to provide post-production Contractor Logistic Support (CLS) for the fielded QF-16 system and repair or replacement of Drone Peculiar Equipment (DPE) and Peculiar Support Equipment (PSE),” the notice explains. “This includes support for program management, logistics and engineering. QF-16s are regenerated F-16s that have been equipped with DPE for use in manned and unmanned operations to meet US Title 10 requirements for the warfighter in evaluating weapons systems.”

“The program office needs to sustain the fleet of approximately 90 QF-16s for an additional 10 years,” the notice continues. “The technical data package and other Data Rights to maintain the software/hardware may not be available without partnering with the OEM. A limited technical data package is available upon request for additional technical details on this potential requirement.”

The “OEM,” or original equipment manufacturer, for the F-16 is currently Lockheed Martin. However, most recently, Boeing had been contracted to convert Vipers into QF-16s.

In 2022, Boeing shuttered one of two QF-16 conversion lines at Cecil Airport in Jacksonville, Florida. At that time, the company said it only planned to operate the second line in Tucson, Arizona, run in cooperation with the Air Force’s 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (309th AMARG), until the completion of an existing contract for an unspecified number of Zombie Vipers was fulfilled. As of the 2021 Fiscal Year, the Air Force was in line to acquire a total of 134 QF-16s, according to Air Force Magazine. The 309th AMARG is also the unit in charge of managing the famous U.S. military aircraft boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.

The Air Force’s QF-16 drones, which can also be flown in a crewed mode for training and other purposes, typically have a lifespan of around 300 flight hours in total post-conversion. The cost to turn F-16 into a Zombie Viper has generally been between $1 and $2 million over the years.

The service has used other converted combat jets for this role, including QF-4 Phantoms, as seen in the videos below, as FSATs in the past.

QF-16s operate from Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, primarily in the ranges over the Gulf of Mexico (which the U.S. government now refers to as the Gulf of America). Zombie Vipers are also based at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, mainly to support activities at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range. QF-16s are used for a variety of test and evaluation work, including the development of new weapons, as well as training events like Combat Archer live-fire air-to-air exercises. You can read more about the QF-16 in this past TWZ feature.

“The Air Force still considers the QF-16 expendable,” the Air Force spokesperson also told TWZ. There are no indications currently that the service is looking to convert more F-16s into Zombie Vipers to meet its FSAT needs into the next decade. Even if there was interest, it is not immediately clear where additional Viper airframes to turn into target drones might come from.

TWZ has noted in the past that U.S. military stocks of older F-16s most suitable for conversion into FSATs have steadily dwindled over the years. At the same time, demands on the Air Force’s operational Viper force have only increased at home and abroad. Turning new F-16s in storage into Zombie Vipers could be an option, but would not necessarily be the best use of airframes that could also be valuable sources of spare parts for operational jets, or even reactivated entirely to make up for attrition, especially in the event a major conflict breaks out. The U.S. Navy has also acquired ex-Air Force F-16s to support its adversary air program. Foreign air arms, including the Ukrainian Air Force, and private contractors that supply ‘red air’ aggressor services have been increasingly snatching up F-16s available on the more and more picked-over global second-hand market, or have been looking to do so, as well.

The Air Force, along with other branches of the U.S. military, have been trying for years now to acquire new full-size target drones, or ones that can at least mimic real fast-moving tactical jets. The goal has also been for those drones to have stealth and other more modern features, or the ability to simulate those capabilities with a high degree of fidelity. So far, however, progress in this regard has been extremely limited.

“The Air Force has not identified or funded a full-scale aerial target replacement” for the QF-16, the service spokesperson told TWZ.

In the meantime, potential adversaries, especially China, continue to field ever-more advanced aircraft, including stealthy types, crewed and uncrewed, and missiles. Just in December, two previously unseen Chinese stealth combat jet designs emerged. Additional demand for fifth-generation-representative aerial targets, especially to support the development of new munitions and sensors, has already been growing.

These are needs QF-16s cannot really meet, though Zombie Vipers have been used to support testing of the new AIM-260 air-to-air missile. There is also just the overall target drone capacity question given the amount of expected missile testing the U.S. military is looking at in the years to come. QF-16s can survive a hit from a missile without a warhead and be refurbished for re-use. Missiles also do not necessarily need to hit a target to successfully score a ‘kill’ in testing or to meet other test objectives.

The Air Force is also expecting to keep a pocket fleet of F-117 Nighthawk combat jets flying through at least 2034 to help meet demand for stealthy aerial targets for testing and training purposes, but these aircraft are not expendable at all.

There has also been talk about whether the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone program could create a new pipeline for stealthy target drones. This could come in the form of target drone derivatives of CCA designs or simply expending actual CCAs in this role at the end of their service lives, which are expected to be relatively short. When any of that might be realized remains to be seen as the Air Force still has yet to finalize a plan for acquiring its first tranche of operational CCAs, deliveries of which are not expected to start until later this decade at the earliest.

In the meantime, the Air Force will continue to rely on Zombie Vipers to provide important full-size targets, and ones it can blow up if desired, for testing and training purposes.

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