Remote controlled jet or something else?

Recently joined to get ideas on what I saw a few weeks ago. On March 29 or April 5 ( can't remember exactly) I saw what appeared to be an F16 that was the wrong scale and flying too slow. What follows is what I experienced as best as I can describe it.

I was driving south on US 167 just north of Ruston Louisiana. I was coming down a hill into a straight stretch of road. In the distance directly in front of me was something flying maybe 150 to 200 feet above the ground. It was travelling east to west. There are some fields on both sides of the road, so I was able to keep it in sight the whole time it took me to travel through the straight stretch of road (about half of a mile). When I got even with the point that the object crossed the road it was probably a half to 3/4 of a mile to the west of the highway. The object turned toward the south. That is when I could see that it looked like a plane of some sort. It was flying very slow and made me think it was remote control. I didn't see anyone that could be controlling it though.

After I travelled down the road another 2 or 3 miles I was between Vienna and Ruston Louisiana. I saw the "airplane" again. This time it was on the east side of the highway flying east and started to turn north. It was close enough for me to tell that it looked like an F16 but only about 1/4 the size and moving way too slow to be a jet. What I saw looked a lot like this picture:
F16 Pic

The only difference from this pic would be:
1. What I saw was banked a little more.

2. What I saw had no armanment but did have the pylons for wingtip missles.

3. What I saw had no markings or numbers.

I could not hear it (my windows were up and the A/C was on) and it seemed to go so slow that I thought it was going to stop and hover. I was only about 400 feet away from it and it was just above the tree tops. It was at my 10 o'clock when I first saw it on the east side of the highway and I saw it for about four seconds until it was at my 8 o'clock and trees got in my way.

I never saw it again and was not in a place I could pull over safely. I don't know what to think about this. I first thought remote control, but it seemed to have travelled too far and would have been out of site from someone controlling it from the ground at those distances (I'm guessing a total distance from start to finish of about 3 1/2 miles mixed open areas and forest). I would also think if someone built a remote control F16 that it would have some markings and some fake missles on it.

Has anyone here ever seen anything like this?

There are many models of RC F-16.


[edit on 2008-4-25 by nablator]

reply to post by nablator


What an amazingly beautiful place to fly an RC plane!

Is that Colorado?

Originally posted by nablator
There are many models of RC F-16.

Yea, I've looked around and the largest seem to be 1/8 or 1/6 scale. What I saw would have been about 1/4 scale.

As someone who watches crop dusters fly in fields around my area, I will say that planes can appear smaller then one would imagine, even close up. If you are sure of the 1/2 to 3/4 mile distance, a model would appear very small. Hopefully your have add that point into your thoughts and research.

For a model to appear again to you several miles away with you at highway speeds seems unlikely.

Just my thoughts.