Image source and original caption: 413th Flight Test Group on Facebook

The 339th Flight Test Squadron at Robins AFB, Georgia, puts aircraft back in action by conducting depot flight tests on the C-5 Galaxy, C-130 Hercules and F-15 Eagle following depot-level maintenance.

This fiscal year, the squadron flew 351 sorties, logged 513.5 flight hours and released 83 aircraft back to the warfighter.

Tested. Cleared. Ready to fly. 💪

McDonnell Douglas F-15E-47-MC Strike Eagle, USAF serial number 89-0487:

0487 MSN 1134/E109. (4th TFW, 335th TFS) flown by Capt Rick Bennet and Capt Daniel Bakke destroyed IrAF Mi 24 helicopter with GBU-10 Feb 14, 1991, Desert Storm. Achieved a milestone of 12,000 flying hours Aug 16, 2016. With 335th FS, 4th FW at SJ AFB.

Source: Joe Baugher's serial number lists

USAF article from 2012: F-15E reaches flying-hour milestone

Photos of 89-0487 at AirHistory.net

The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School is upgrading the X-62A VISTA, an F-16 testbed used for artificial intelligence-piloted flights, to allow AI agents to control the settings of the aircraft’s sensors, according to Rachel Kinard, the school’s director of research.

In previous tests, AI agents could change the control surfaces of the VISTA — short for Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft — and receive input from other onboard sensors, but these agents could not adjust sensor settings. The upgrade will add that ability.

Dubbed the Mission System Upgrade or MSU, the modifications are being done in collaboration with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. The goal is to ensure the X-62 can test and evaluate increasingly advanced AI tools for a larger number of in-flight tasks.

The MSU is being funded by the Test Resource Management Center, which did not provide further information, and the Test Pilot School, which said it contributes a “small amount” of funding, but did not provide an exact figure.

An Air Force spokesperson said the proposed fiscal year 2027 funding for the X-62 program is $15.7 million, up from the $6.5 million it received for fiscal 2026. 

Following the upgrade, “we are going to be able to do something with the X-62 that nobody has ever done before, which is have agents actually control mission systems within the airplane,” said Noel Zamot, a mission systems specialist at the Test Pilot School.

X-62 disassembly began a few months ago. By mid-October, the aircraft looks as though “some little elf just started taking panels out and pulling wire,” Zamot said. “It’s like something has disgorged from the vehicle.”

The “core” of the X-62 is a standard F-16 flight computer, Kinard said. Attached to this is the Variable Stability System software — “like a flight simulator” — and a protective “safety trip.” This allows the X-62 to fly by copying the aircraft model in the simulator. Linked to the VSS is the System for Autonomous Control of the Simulation (SACS), a computer box added in 2020 that allows an AI agent to pilot the aircraft model within the simulator and, by extension, the X-62 itself.

The ongoing upgrade will add the System for Autonomous Mission Systems, or SAMS, Kinard said. This computer box will allow AI agents to control the sensors and, crucially, will be linked to the SACS, so AI agents in the SACS and SAMS can interact.

Raytheon’s PhantomStrike radar, which has a digitally controlled scanning array, is also being added to the aircraft’s nose cone. The company declined to comment.

Kinard said the radar, combined with the other modifications, will allow AI agents to decide “wild numbers of parameters all the way down the signal processing chain, to the raw data that makes up those images on the end of the sensor.”

Gabe Beard, a Lockheed Martin Skunk Works engineering manager, described it as enabling “two-way feedback” between sensor and AI agent.

“The complexity is about to explode,” Kinard added.

These expanded capabilities will keep the X-62 on the cutting edge of autonomous research, Zamot said. “There’s a lot of tests and a lot of work on [flight] autonomy. There’s not been a lot of work — to our knowledge — on autonomy that is focused on mission systems [and] that is not necessarily for an airplane that will be uncrewed.”

You can see the power before you see the Eagle.

Source Nigerian AF (Jul 2026)

Part of a marketing campaign to sell the Eagle to the French. It flew for 4 days in French colors before reverting back to the original one.

hey i just got genuine question that i couldn't find an answer for,

if jammers alr exist on 4th gen jet fighters why use stealth?

im not a jet expert so its kinda confusing

excuse my english it isnt my main language

i cant find a clear answer on this

early gens of the f-15 is marketed as strictly an Air superiority fighter while the E was a multirole strike fighter, yet both were sold at the same time

is ther any actual difference between the two besides loadouts? like does the f-15c have something over the E that makes it a better Air superiority fighter?

Source: Anthony Seeley. https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/model/HAL%20Gnat%20F.1

This was a proposed plan to provide a low cost combat aircraft to allow allied nations with a fledgling economy during the Carter Administration. Like many experiments of that era, it did not go through.

A7iv + 200-600 G OSS

This might be the most advanced update of the ol Kfir