Full Scale Aerial Targets

[James1978]

Does anyone know what the criteria are when selecting retired fighters for conversion to Full Scale Aerial Targets?
For example, why would one F-4E have been chosen for QF-4 conversion over any other F-4E sitting at Davis-Monthan?
And why one model of a fighter over another? The F-4C and F-4D all left USAF service in the late 1980s and hadn't been in storage for long, but none of them were used as QF-4s.



If this topic fits better somewhere else, feel free to move it.

 

[TsrJoe]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1806689094509932890

View: https://x.com/CcibChris/status/1806689094509932890

 

[NMaude]

The F-4C and F-4D all left USAF service in the late 1980s

I thought that they were retired in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Those airframes least likely (in other words most worn out) to be reactivated for operational use would be one criteria, IIRC.