Free Republic

MOJAVE - Marking the continuation of a long-standing Mojave program, employees of BAE Systems Flight Systems celebrated the Thursday delivery of their 200th QF-4 drone aircraft to the Air Force. These unmanned aircraft are converted F-4 fighters taken from the boneyard to be used as realistic targets for weapons development. Based at the Mojave Airport, BAE Systems is the exclusive provider of these aircraft for the Air Force. "This family we call Flight Systems has been doing this for a long time. What you do for the warfighter and our country is so important," said Paul Nafziger, vice president and...

Israel says it has broken up a Palestinian guerrilla cell that had been planning to send a bomb-laden drone aircraft into a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. It claims the cell was run by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, supporting contentions of growing foreign backing for the Palestinian groups behind suicide bombings and ambushes in the three-and-a-half-year-old uprising. In a statement, Israel says the Yemen-born cell leader in Gaza and two of his deputies were arrested in August and December last year. It says the cell had tried to build a glider intended to fly explosives and blow up...