This Aviation Week & Space Technology editor received an up-close look at full-scale drone operations by flying in a QF-4 here at Tyndall AFB. The mission was a regularly scheduled recertification sortie for Lockheed Martin ground controllers, who must fly the QF-4s remotely every 15 days. Normally, drone missions are controlled from a fixed-base facility at Tyndall AFB called the Gulf Range Drone Control System (GRDCS). Most maneuvers and profiles are preprogrammed and flown in an automatic mode—including takeoff and landing—with controllers monitoring the drones' flight path and reconfiguring the fighter as necessary. For our flight, "X-Ray" controllers at the GRDCS were Larry Waters and Larry Breau. They can fly the drones manually, or in an automatic mode.
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