F-16 airstrike kills 3 terrorist leaders

Air Force Link ^

[dighton]

[El Gato]

That's not anti Jihadie missile. It's a Sidewinder Air-to-air missile.

the missile like think on the left wingtip is and air combat maneuvering instrumentation (ACMI) Pod. It's used to track the aircraft, and provide the aircraft's position, speed, attitude, etc as well as simulated missile shots. The information, along with similar information from the target aircraft, is then used to determine if the shot would have hit the target.

That one actually might be a similar pod used as a pure telemetry system for the missile test. In either case the pod is connected to the aircraft's internal bus (usually 1553), so what the central computer on the aircraft knows, the pod knows.