Last QF-4 retiring

The 53d Wing and 49th Wing alongside veterans, retirees and community members will bid farewell Dec. 21 to the last active duty F-4 Phantom II airframes, the QF-4 aerial drone, in a ceremony at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. The F-4 Phantom II entered Air Force inventory in 1963 and was the primary fighter-bomber aircraft in the U.S. Air Force throughout the 1960s and 1970s. F-4s also flew reconnaissance and "Wild Weasel" anti-aircraft missile suppression missions. Phantom II production ended in 1979 and some of the inventory were converted to aerial drones. The QF-4 aerial targets are currently assigned to the 82 Aerial Target Squadron, Detachment 1 at Holloman, a geographically separated unit of the 53rd Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. (Source: Air Force, 12/05/16) Previous