The Fleetwings BQ-1 was an early expendable
unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
— referred to at the time as an "
assault drone" — developed by
Fleetwings
Fleetwings, later Kaiser-Fleetwings, was an American aircraft company of the 1930s and 1940s.
History
Fleetwings started in 1926 (under a different name) as a business based on a patented mechanical timing device, which proved particularly suit ...
during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
for use by the
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
. Only a single example of the type was built, the program being cancelled following the crash of the prototype on its first flight.
Development
Development of the BQ-1 began on July 10, 1942, under a program for the development of "aerial torpedoes" – unmanned aircraft carrying internal bombs – that had been instigated in March of that year. Fleetwings was contracted to build a single XBQ-1 assault drone,
[Werrell 1985, p.30.] powered by two
Franklin O-405
The Franklin O-405 (company designation 6AC-403) was an American air-cooled aircraft engine of the 1940s. The engine was of Flat-six engine, six-cylinder, horizontally-opposed layout and Engine displacement, displaced . The power output was betwe ...
-7
opposed piston engine
An opposed-piston engine is a piston engine in which each cylinder has a piston at both ends, and no cylinder head. Petrol and diesel opposed-piston engines have been used mostly in large-scale applications such as ships, military tanks, and f ...
s, and fitted with a fixed landing gear in
tricycle configuration. The aircraft was
optionally piloted; a single-seat cockpit was installed for ferry and training flights; a fairing would replace the cockpit canopy on operational missions.
[Parsch 2005] The BQ-1 was intended to carry a
warhead
A warhead is the forward section of a device that contains the explosive agent or toxic (biological, chemical, or nuclear) material that is delivered by a missile, rocket, torpedo, or bomb.
Classification
Types of warheads include:
* Explosiv ...
over a range of at ; the aircraft would be destroyed in the act of striking the target.
A single
BQ-2 was to be constructed as well under the same contract.
Flight testing
Following trials of the television-based
command guidance
Command guidance is a type of missile guidance in which a ground station or aircraft relay signals to a guided missile via radio control or through a wire connecting the missile to the launcher and tell the missile where to steer to intercept its ...
system using a
PQ-12 target drone
A target drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle, generally remote controlled, usually used in the training of anti-aircraft crews.
One of the earliest drones was the British DH.82 Queen Bee, a variant of the Tiger Moth trainer aircraft operationa ...
, and earlier trials of the XBQ-2A, the XBQ-1 flew in May 1944; however, the aircraft crashed on its maiden flight. Following the loss of the lone prototype BQ-1, the project was cancelled.
Specifications (XBQ-1)
See also
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*
*
{{US unmanned aircraft
BQ-1
1940s United States bomber aircraft
Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States
World War II guided missiles of the United States
Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United States
High-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1944
Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft