McDonnell ADM-20 Quail

The McDonnell ADM-20 Quail, first designated GAM-72 and nicknamed Green Quail, was a small turbojet-powered decoy missile that McDonnell Aircraft built for the United States Air Force. It was carried inside the weapons bay of a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and carried electronics and radar reflectors so that Soviet air defences would see it as a second bomber approaching at low altitude, forcing them to split their missiles and interceptors between real and false targets. The design was a cropped delta wing and a slab-sided body built largely of fibreglass, with twin fins, and the wings and fins folded so that two decoys fitted together in the bay. McDonnell won the contract in February 1956, the first powered flight came in August 1958, and the first production missiles reached Strategic Air Command in 1960. About 585 of the main production version were delivered by 1962, and in 1963 the type was redesignated ADM-20. Radar improvements made it obsolete, and the last ADM-20C left the Air Force inventory on 15 December 1978. Many survive in museums.