The AIM-120D, the newest version of the advanced medium-range air-to-air missile that the Air Force is buying, destroyed an unmanned target drone during a recent developmental flight test, according to Raytheon, the missile’s maker. A Navy F/A-18F fighter fired the AIM-120D against a QF-4 drone on May 22 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the company said in an Aug. 5 release that announced the heretofore undisclosed shootdown. “This test is another important milestone on the road to putting the AIM-120D in the hands of the US warfighter,” Col. Scott Rumph, commander of the Air Force’s 328th Armament Systems Group, said in the release. The Air Force ordered 98 AIM-120Ds under a contract announced in late May. The D model builds upon its predecessor the AIM-120C7 by offering increased jam resistance in the face of adversary electronic attack systems as well as a two-way datalink and GPS-aided navigation.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…