File: McDonnell_Douglas_Aquiline_.jpg (172.7 KB)

>>65211267
Here it is in color hung upside down.

>>65211279 Why did china fail at invading Vietnam twice?

File: axillary.png (62.0 KB)

>>65211267
There was also the way lesser known project Axillary which I think was just one guy making his own drone prototype to save on cost.

File: axillary2.jpg (30.6 KB)

>>65211433

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>>65211267
Was that net attached to a C-130?

>>65211267
It's a 1 for 1 inspiration of the drones in the Terminator movies...

>>65211267
In other words China has once again come in at least half a century behind.

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>>65211433
>>65211472
Smaller RPVs like Aquiline were recovered with a ground-staked net. Many of these types of small drones, ground-launched and -recovered were tested and trialed during the late 1960s and through 1970s by U.S., Canada, Australia and West Germany; look through Jane's All The World's Aircraft reference of those years for dozens of examples.
Axillary was from a company called Melpar, Inc. that a couple years later was absorbed into LTV Electrosystems aka E-Systems (that had several small drone projects), look up the E-Systems E-45 and E-55.

During the 1960s and 1970s they were named RPVs (Remotely Piloted Vehicles).
>>65211534
Teledyne Ryan had the AQM-91 Firefly. It was a design extension of the company's own Model 147 Lightning Bug (AQM-34) RPV series, specifically the high-altitude 147B / G / H variants (the latter H designation was AQM-34N).
The (company designation) Model 154 Firefly had a brand new engine: the General Electric YJ97-GE-3 of 4,000 lb thrust, much more powerful than the Teledyne-Continental J69 used in the 147 Lightning Bug and Firebee drones. The YJ97 was optimized for high altitude flight at 70,000 feet. The Model 154 Firefly was given the Air Force project designation AQM-91 Compass Arrow. It was designed to perform overflight missions of communist China, as the Model 147B / G / H / SK RPVs had done, but at much higher altitude and with a stealth airframe that had a flat undersurface, and the engine mounted atop fuselage. Radar absorbent materials similiar to Lockheed's A-12 and D-21 were used in the airframe construction and along leading edges. LIke the 147 series RPVs, Model 154 Firefly did not have landing gear: designed to be launched by DC-130 and recovered by the MARS (mid-air retrieval system) CH-3E recovery helicopter.
Compass Arrow was canceled in July 1971, as was Lockheed's D-21 program when United States overflight reconnaissance of China was stopped by the Nixon administration.

>>65211267
>>65211697
The issue is not the airframe. What makes modern drones deadly are the avionics, remote link and control and increasingly, AI. All these can only be achieved today due to shrinking the electronics, CPU and also huge leaps in battery tech not available in the 60s. A single cheaply made ukie drone has more processing power than a 60s mainframe that takes up an entire building.

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>>65212260
>issue
? The OP posted a topic. About an old RPV project of a U.S. government contractor, half a century ago.

>muh processing power DERRRRP / battery
Obviously, aviation electronics are far more capable today than they were half a century ago. Satellite guidance also now exists.

>what makes deadly
(You) have zero notion or idea what you're talking about, here in OP historical topic. Many combat drones were designed + used half a century ago; for actual combat/direct target attack purposes, was more frequent back then to use *guided missiles* for those missions. Now with the recent advances in (+ lower manufacturing cost of) electronics miniaturization and satellite/other guidance and nav, the lines between 'drone' and 'missile' have become more blurred than back in the RPV days.
Also the U.S. RPV programs were substantially defunded and down-scaled after the 1974 end of Vietnam war. It was only in the 1990s and later that the United States began funding combat UAV programs (MQ-1, RQ-4 etc.) again with an entirely new approach and new electronics developments.
The southeast Asia era U.S. combat drones such as Model 147 had been substantially funded during 1962-1973 by National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in combination with the Air Force support. Picrel is a TAC multi-mission RPV under development when the Indochina war-era was terminated. Teledyne Ryan continued developing and attempting to sell this system on their own after gov funding ran out, but it and related electronic warfare and tactical strike RPVs were abandoned by late 1970s: imagine however, from fifty years ago how much more advanced those weapon technologies might ? have been rn if such funding, development continued.

(for example) Study all the way to bottom of this page, external references at end
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Model_147
>Erhard, Thomas P. Air Force UAVs: The Secret History. 2010, Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies [available free as online PDF]

>>65211270
Why did they hang it upside down?

File: 1276929485193279047-3815213786.jpg (151.3 KB)

>fighters will get rid of the men and become drones with the ability to do everything a man operated plane can do
>I see a diminished role for manned military aircraft and more reliance on remotely piloted vehicles and missiles

>>65214043
Hap Arnold was a great man. Read his 1946 paper on cost comparisons of V1s, V2s, and manned bombers.

The liquid fueled ballistic rockets were a waste, but the cruise missiles were far cheaper than manned bombers per payload delivered. And this was the 1940s!

>>65212260
Lithium ion batteries were around in 1966, Sony camcorders actually had lithium ion batteries the ones that took the little tapes

>>65214443
>technical analysis immediately post-WWII of brand-new technologies
Yes (Arnold's study is germane and of interest) but the difference and deciding factor is: Nuclear weapons also then existed and made total war obsolete. That's why we rn have endless protracted conflicts in both Persian gulf and Ukraine.
Total war ceased to exist after 1945. Debates about 'efficiency' and suitability of this-that weapon system or particular technology are irrelevant, in the strategic and administrative perspective.

>>65211267
How did it do recon

>>65214794
Reportedly (from the small amount of govdocs and program first-person interview accounts available) it flew at low altitude <1,000 ft with a video camera that transmitted real time images to a ground station, and also had a 35 mm film camera. Just a basic small tac recon drone, the tech was developed in dozens of other similar machines during the following decade.
OP calls it "long range" but test articles only flew about 130 miles in the brief flight testing program (perhaps "long" for a tac battlefield drone of the era but not a strategic system).

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Key thing to remember about OP topic program, AQUILINE, is that it was a CIA requisitioned + funded one. Just like the A-12 was. That's why information has been so sparsely available about it. Douglas Aircraft (a few years later McDonnell Douglas) was the only contractor to respond to the Central Intelligence Agency on their RFP for this project. Just like with the Lockheed A-12, no one in the aerospace community or public received further information at all about the secret project until decades later declassification. (i.e. we went for decades knowing only about the Air Force's YF-12 and SR-71 developments of the A-12<--that was a CIA project.) For 1965 when AQUILINE started, it was a relatively innovative CIA idea/requirement for a small, stealthy battlefield reconnaissance drone but the basic concept would be much refined and improved on just a couple years later by Teledyne Ryan, Northrop, E-Systems and dozens of others openly contracting with U.S. Army, USAF, West Germany etc.

>>65214443
I'll check it out. I somewhat bashfully admit that I only know of Arnold as the guy who dismissed Hansell.

bump

>>65212322
>Why did they hang it upside down?
It asked to be hung that way so as not to demean the flory of the larger, more holy drone behind it.

>>65214844
>That's why information has been so sparsely available about it.
esl

>>65218333
checked,
That is why information about AQUILINE has been so sparsely available.
(<--read the first two sentences #65214844
prior to that) Fuck (You) brainlet. And fuck this entire faggot board /k/. I was going to post additional information about the OP topic based on my review of classified documents, which have very sparse information about the actual program operations and technical/engineering details of it, but based on—look at the /k/ Catalog rn for example, absolute worst of entirety of 4chan—will not even bother. No user here appreciates or even comprehends the effort posts I've put here on RPVs. Not to mention this board is all bots and foreigners.

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>>65211697
>During the 1960s and 1970s they were named RPVs (Remotely Piloted Vehicles).
How terrible. I'm glad we memoryhole'd that acronym

>>65218760
UAVs(/whatever else) is even more by-committeed and far worse.

>>65214807
They could be launched from F-4s to extend the total range.

>>65219193
>launched from F-4s
Didn't see any air launch mentioned in the operational concept documents. Also since it (is)was a CIA program something like that would have required USAF participation.
The operational plans specify use of forward bases: meaning they'd be ground (or perhaps?? ship?) launched/recovered from operating bases located withing a few-several hundred miles of designated targets. Projected operational targets included Barents Sea, China + Vietnam coastal areas, Lop Nor, Sary Shagan
U.S. Navy operated (see post ^^above about the Lightning Bug 1964-1972 operations) Ryan Model 147SK—RATO booster-launched subvariant of the air launched USAF/NRO Model 147SC aka AQM-34L—medium range reconnaissance drones from 1969-70 for missions over China and North Vietnam<--wreckage displayed of shot down drones from there verifies the SK type. (Israel, later during mid-70s operated another ground launched variant of the 147SC series Teledyne Ryan RPVs sold to IDF as the Model 124I)