Although using the F-16 for the conversion is new, they’ve been doing this since the early 70s. They first used old retired F-102s, then F-100s and more recently F-4s. They are used for live-fire training, so pilots can intercept and then blow them up. It’s far from the unmanned autonomous combat thing you see in the movies.
And yeah, I’d rather just have the Air Force buy some copies of Ace Combat and a few XBoxes and do something else with the money. Unfortunately, Lockheed Martin has better lobbyists than poor sick people.
