Lockheed MQM-105 Aquila

The Lockheed MQM-105 Aquila, the name meaning Eagle, was the first small battlefield drone developed in the United States, in the 1970s, to act as a target designator for the US Army. It grew out of a DARPA remotely piloted observation program begun in 1972, and Lockheed was the low bidder when the Army sought a demonstrator in 1975. In 1979 the Lockheed Missile and Space Division won the full-scale development contract for 22 air vehicles. The result was a stealthy tailless aircraft with a pusher propeller driven by a two-stroke piston engine, launched by a truck-mounted hydraulic catapult and recovered by flying into a vertical net. Testing found reliability problems and the aircraft missed 21 of 149 performance specifications at first, and the Department of Defense review board cancelled the program in 1987, although the Army had asked for production.