The Battle of Palmdale was the attempted shoot-down of a runaway drone by United States Air Force interceptors in the skies over Southern California in mid-August 1956.

[3] On the morning of 16 August 1956, at NAS Point Mugu, an F6F-5K, painted high-visibility red, was prepared for its final mission by Navy personnel.

The Navy had no aircraft available capable of dispatching the drone, so they called Oxnard Air Force Base 5 miles (8.0 km) to the north.

As the drone circled slowly over Santa Paula, the Scorpion pilots waited for it to fly over an unpopulated area so they could attack with their "Mighty Mouse" 2.75-inch folding-fin rockets.

Soon the drone turned northeast, passing over Fillmore, then Frazier Park,[2] heading for the western section of the mostly uninhabited Antelope Valley.

The attackers attempted to fire in automatic mode several times, but due to a design flaw in the fire-control system the rockets failed to launch.

The second interceptor moved into position and unleashed another salvo of 42, the rockets passing just beneath the bright red drone, a few glancing off the fuselage underside, but none detonating.

[1][failed verification] Close to the town of Newhall the pair of jets made a second pass, launching a total of 64 rockets; again none found the mark.

The two Scorpion crews adjusted their intervalometer settings and, as the wayward drone headed northeast toward Palmdale, each fired a last salvo of 30 at the target with no hits, dispensing their last rockets.

The drone slowly descended in an easy spiral, approaching a desolate section of desert 8 miles (13 km) east from Palmdale Regional Airport.

[1] The first set of rockets started brush fires 7 miles (11 km) northeast from Castaic which burned 150 acres (61 ha) above the old Ridge Route near Bouquet Canyon.

Other rockets started fires in the proximity of Soledad Canyon, near Mount Gleason, burning more than 350 acres (140 ha) of rough brush.