First flight on January 20, 1974, implying the age of service of the Eagle Fighter - F-16 Fighting Falcon has reached 49 years. Even though it has a battle proven title in various operations in various countries, it continues to be produced in the latest variant (F-16 Block 70 Viper).
However, the future of the F-16 is still a question mark, will its 'career' be dimmed by the presence of a stealth fighter jet?
Quoted from Interesting Engineering – interestingengineering.com (5/4/2023), it is stated that the next phase in the career of the esteemed F-16 Fighting Falcon is to convert it into an unmanned aircraft, aka drone. A significant next step in the development of the US Air Force's loyal wingman drone network.
The idea is that these F-16 drones will act as robotic wingmates, in which case two drones might be allocated to one F-35 Lightning II pilot. They (drones) can perform activities such as dogfighting and serve as a "force multiplier" for human-piloted aircraft. The official name for these drones is Collaborative Combat Aircraft, and the US Air Force will probably buy many of them. It says that they want to have 1000 units.
Going into detail, the project name for the drone of the F-16 is called VENOM (Viper Experimentation and Next-Generation Operations Model), derived from the common moniker pilots gave to the F-16. To ensure the F-16 functions as a drone, it is necessary to implant autonomous software to control the fighter drone better than a person can control a fighter jet.
For the initial stage, the VENOM project will convert around six F-16s to fly independently, even with humans still in the cockpit acting as supervisors. The budget for the proposed VENOM project for the 2024 fiscal year is close to US$50 million.
Air Force Chief Scientist Victoria Coleman describes project VENOM as “a bridge between a fully autonomous set of capabilities and a fully manned set of capabilities, which is where we are today.”
According to Coleman, the (human) pilot would launch the jet while letting the software take control in the air to test whether the system was working as intended and offering the desired benefits. Coleman also said that using this strategy, the US Air Force could add new software and speed up experimentation beyond what would normally be required to approve software for aviation.
“Self-driving cars don't go from fully manual to fully automatic,” explains Coleman. “Tesla [vehicles] and other electric vehicles, they have traveled millions or billions of miles where they learn and discover how to interact with human operators and do it safely and securely. We can't pass up that part in the Air Force," he added.
Most of the nearly US$50 million requested by the Air Force for Project VENOM will be for research and development, with an additional US$2.5 million for acquisition assistance. No firm decisions have yet been made regarding the bases and organization that will host Project VENOM. However, 118 staff jobs are requested in the budget to support Project VENOM at Florida's Eglin Air Force Base.
Between the fiscal years 2025 and 2028, the US Air Force plans to invest between US$17 million and US$19 million in the program. The estimated cost of Project VENOM over the next five years is estimated at US$120 million.
Before Project VENOM was rolled out, the F-16's debut as a drone had already taken place, namely as a target drone through the QF-16 Zombie Viper. In 2010 the US Air Force started a program to convert F-16s into QF-16s.
The modification as QF-16 was carried out by installing the Drone Peculiar Equipment kit made by Boeing. According to Boeing, it is not difficult to turn the F-16 into a drone, because this fighter jet already carries fly-by-wire technology and an on-board computer to translate pilot commands into action.
At that time, 32 F-16 units were removed from The Boneyard in the Davis Monthan Airfield area. The QF-16 fleet is currently assembled at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida labeled 82d Aerial Target Squadron with the slogan "Zombie Viper."
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