Beechcraft QU-22 Pave Eagle

The Beechcraft QU-22 Pave Eagle is an American optionally piloted airborne radio relay aircraft based on the Beechcraft Bonanza, designed to replace the Lockheed EC-121R Batcat in the Operation Igloo White mission and flown by the United States Air Force in the Vietnam War between 1968 and 1972. The Batcat, based on the Super Constellation airliner, was expensive and needed a crew of 15, so the Air Force ordered a new aircraft based on the Bonanza. The YQU-22A Pave Eagle I was a modified Model E33A Bonanza capable of unmanned flight. It proved inadequate, so Beechcraft secretly built the improved QU-22B Pave Eagle II, based on the Model A36 Bonanza, with a 375 hp turbocharged Continental engine, a geared propeller to reduce noise, explosive bolts in the wings so that it could self-destruct if control was lost, and the wing spar and landing gear of the Baron. A close air support variant, the YAU-22A, was canceled in 1972.