{"id":25642,"date":"2019-12-26T22:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T22:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2019\/12\/26\/a-drone-was-destroyed-by-a-f-16-with-a-guided-rocket\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:00:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:00:37","slug":"a-drone-was-destroyed-by-a-f-16-with-a-guided-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/unmanned\/2019\/12\/26\/a-drone-was-destroyed-by-a-f-16-with-a-guided-rocket\/","title":{"rendered":"A drone was destroyed by &#8230; a F-16 with a guided rocket?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the militaries of the world struggle to adapt to the threat posed by small cheap drones, sometimes the obvious needs answering. Which is why, when the Air Force announced that a fighter jet had successfully shot down a small drone, it caught the attention of the counter-drone world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maj. Jeffrey Entine, flying an F-16C with the 85th Flight Test Squadron, shot a rocket at a test drone near Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, Dec. 19, according to a statement from the service. The<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dvidshub.net\/image\/5995134\/f-16-shoots-down-test-drone\" target=_blank> stated purpose<\/a> of the test was to \u201cdemonstrate shooting a small drone at low altitudes,\u201d and it appears to have been a success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While \u201csmall drone\u201d may call to mind hobbyist quadcopters or the tactical drones used by infantry, the target drone in question was a BQM-167, a kind of drone specifically designed as an aerial target. With a length of 20 feet tip-to-tail and a maximum gross takeoff weight of over 2,000 lbs, the BQM-167 is small only in relation to the jet fighter that shot it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Confusing target drones for hobbyist quadcopters is full circle for military terminology. For decades, the most popular use of drone in military circles was as a collective term for flying aerial targets. Training human pilots and gunners on simple moving targets is a long-standing practice; before she was Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jeane Dougherty assembled aerial targets for the Radioplane company during World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What is novel about the recent shoot-down by Entine is that non-target drones, which date back at least as far as World War I, are now a regular part of military operations and civilian life. Air Force pilots shooting down drones outside of combat is an expected practice. While shooting down plane-sized drones in combat is expected, using a whole anti-air missile on a smaller, cheaper target would be overkill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The weapon used against the drone was an AGR-20A Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS)<a href=\"https:\/\/www.airforcemag.com\/f-16-downs-drone-with-rocket-for-cruise-missile-defense-test\/\" target=_blank> laser-guided rocket<\/a>, guided by a targeting pod on the F-16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, while the F-16 demonstrated an anti-drone capacity with the test, the greater aim was to demonstrate that the laser-guided rocket could be used as an anti-cruise-missile weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOriginally developed as a low cost, low collateral damage air-to-ground weapon for use in Afghanistan and Iraq, adapting the AGR-20A for counter-air use is momentous. The AGR-20A is a fraction of the cost of an AIM-120 missile commonly used for cruise missile defense,\u201d said 53d Wing Office of Public Affairs in a statement. \u201cAdditionally, the AGR-20A can be loaded faster than an AIM-120 and an aircraft can carry two-to-three times the number weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Militaries have yet to settle on a common arsenal of counter-drone tools, and in the absence of such<a href=\"https:\/\/www.c4isrnet.com\/unmanned\/2019\/10\/02\/counter-drone-companies-eager-to-offer-solutions-to-future-drone-attacks\/\" target=_blank> silver bullets<\/a>, F-16s with laser-guided rockets could fit into a broader picture of layered defense against drones and missiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the militaries of the world struggle to adapt to the threat posed by small cheap drones, sometimes the obvious needs answering. Which is why, when the Air Force announced that a fighter jet had successfully shot down a small drone, it caught the attention of the counterdrone world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":55511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":27,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[33,36,27,167],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3144],"class_list":["post-25642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-newsletters","category-unmanned","category-unmanned-systems"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"T7RG6P4G7REMVBJCS5QSBYNS4U","arc_canonical_url":"\/unmanned\/2019\/12\/26\/a-drone-was-destroyed-by-a-f-16-with-a-guided-rocket\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A drone was destroyed by ... a F-16 with a guided rocket? - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As the militaries of the world struggle to adapt to the threat posed by small cheap drones, sometimes the obvious needs answering. Which is why, when the Air Force announced that a fighter jet had successfully shot down a small drone, it caught the attention of the counterdrone world.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A drone was destroyed by ... a F-16 with a guided rocket?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As the militaries of the world struggle to adapt to the threat posed by small cheap drones, sometimes the obvious needs answering. Which is why, when the Air Force announced that a fighter jet had successfully shot down a small drone, it caught the attention of the counterdrone world.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/unmanned\/2019\/12\/26\/a-drone-was-destroyed-by-a-f-16-with-a-guided-rocket\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Defense News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-12-26T22:00:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-08T18:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kelsey D. Atherton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kelsey D. 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