Drones have taken on a number of air combat roles and kept pilots out of harm along the way, but they're still at a disadvantage to manned planes in some respects. For one, even huge drones still lack in the speed and payload departments. Also, there's a pragmatic angle: the US military already has thousands of mission-capable aircraft. What if we could drone those?Perhaps that's not as crazy an idea as it sounds. The above video shows the first full scale test flight of Boeing's QF-16 unmanned fighter testbed. According to Boeing, it was flown by two pilots on the ground, who were able to take off and land, with supersonic stints and aerial maneuvers in between.The Q designation means the fighter is a target plane; rather than being used for combat, it's designed to be used as a live simulator for training pilots. The previous standard for the Air Force were retired F-4 Phantoms, which were used in live fire testing after being converted to their unmanned, QF-4 variant. The QF-16 program is designed to bring more up-to-date capabilities to the training ground, while utilizing retired F-16 airframes.Boeing says it has converted six QF-16s so far, and all of them are slated for target practice. So they're drones, but not headed anywhere other than Air Force bases any time soon. (Or so they claim!)@derektmead