Ryan Model 147

The Ryan Model 147, known as the Lightning Bug, is a jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicle that Ryan Aeronautical developed from its Firebee target drone. Introduced from 1962 as a reconnaissance remotely piloted vehicle for a United States Air Force project named Fire Fly, it was developed over the next decade, with secret funding from the National Reconnaissance Office and support from Strategic Air Command, into many variants for photographic and electronic reconnaissance, surveillance, decoy, electronic warfare, signals intelligence and psychological warfare missions over Southeast Asia. The drones had no landing gear. They were air-launched from a carrier aircraft or ground-launched with a rocket booster, then deployed a parachute that a helicopter could snatch in mid-air. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975 the need for combat drones fell and the Lightning Bugs were no longer maintained at full readiness.