3200th Drone Group

3205th Drone Group
Unidentified QB-17L Flying Fortress, 3225th Drone Squadron, Holloman AFB, New Mexico, 1959 Lockheed P-80B-1-LO Shooting Star 44-58641 as QF-80 drone, about 1952
Active	1950–1961
Country	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Role	Drone operations

The 3205th Drone Group is a discontinued United States Air Force unit. It was last active with the Air Proving Ground Center, based at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, where it was discontinued on 1 February 1961.

A notable moment in the Group's history is that a Douglas DB-17P (Formerly B-17G-90-DL) 44-83684 of the unit's 3225th Drone Squadron flew the last operational mission by a USAF Flying Fortress on 6 August 1959.

The 3205th Drone Group operated obsolete aircraft during the 1950s as radio-controlled aerial targets for various tests. It was the primary post-World War II operator of surplus Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress aircraft. It also operated converted Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star and a few Boeing RB-47 Stratojet bombers that were converted into drone aircraft during the early years of the Cold War.

At the end of World War II, the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator were obsolete as strategic bombers, having been replaced by the B-29 Superfortress. B-24 production ended after the surrender of Germany in May 1945, B-17 production ended a month earlier, in April. Many of these new aircraft were simply not needed due to the fortunes of war, and most of them were sent directly from the factory to storage depots.

Initially, these unneeded aircraft were scheduled for scrapping and metal reclamation. These included thousands of war-weary combat aircraft returned from the overseas theaters. A few B-17s were sold to the civil marketplace, however most wound up in the smelters for aluminum recycling. The Army Air Forces, however, decided to retain several hundred new B-17s.

The postwar Air Force B-17s found uses as personnel and VIP transports (CB/VB-17), loaned to defense contractors for various research purposes (EB-17 and JB-17), for mapping (FB-17), for air-sea rescue (SB-17), for weather reconnaissance (WB-17), and for trainers (TB-17). All postwar B-17 conversions and ongoing depot-level maintenance was managed by the Middletown Air Depot at Olmsted Air Force Base, Pennsylvania.