LTV XQM-93

The Ling-Temco-Vought XQM-93 was a remotely piloted aircraft developed in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a communications relay for the Vietnam War. The United States Air Force worked with LTV Electrosystems under the Compass Dwell program to build a drone with ordinary turboprop propulsion, inspired in part by the Igloo White program, whose ground sensors along the Ho Chi Minh Trail needed airborne radio relays. The airframe was based on a Schweizer SGS 2-32 sailplane, heavily modified by Schweizer to take a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-34 turboprop, large fuel tanks and payloads of up to 320 kilograms, with fixed tricycle landing gear. It followed the piloted L450F and flew in early 1972 without cockpit or provision for a pilot. The Air Force ordered four, but Compass Dwell was cancelled that year and the program produced no service-ready aircraft. Two airframes survive in museums in Texas.