Killer Zombies

Resurrecting dead Phantom fighter jets into drones that can fire air-surface missiles.

Teh awesome!!!1!1 Wired

Visit Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, and you'll see rows of obsolete F-4 Phantom II aircraft – or at least their gutted carcasses. This is the Aerospace Maintenance And Regeneration Center or AMARC -- whatever you do, don't call it the Boneyard. For many years, it has been common practice to resurrect these deceased planes as QF-4 unmanned drones, so that they can have a brief and undignified existence as "full-scale aerial targets." Everything in the inventory -- from Sidewinder missiles to Patriots -- have been tested on one at some point, even though some find it "kind of hard to shoot at such a magnificent aircraft."[...]

But earlier this year, the zombie fleet got a new twist (see photo): one of them fired a modified High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile.

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"This is the first air-to-ground missile fired off an unmanned full-scale aerial target," said Major Markle. "This test is an important part of the Det. 1 mission because it increases survivability of our Airmen going against (surface-to-air missile) threats. Furthermore, it's the first time the drone has been able to shoot back.[...]

Could this become more than a mere experiment? Well, the idea of attacking enemy air defenses with a drone seems like a life-saver. Doing it with a QF-4 drone sounds like a money-saver, too. Those HARM missiles cost over $300,000 each. If you have four of them on a QF-4, the whole package comes out to $2 million or so. That's a small fraction of a Reaper's price tag.