The Globe KD4G Quail was an American target drone, built by the

Globe Aircraft Corporation The Globe Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer formed in 1940 in Fort Worth, Texas. It was declared bankrupt in 1947. History The Bennett Aircraft Corporation was originally formed on 5 April 1940 to develop aircraft using a ...

for use by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

Design and development

A catapult-launched, high-wing

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

, the KD4G was of all-metal construction.Grossnick and Armstrong 1997, p.670. The Quail was launched by a

catapult A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored p ...

; power was supplied by a two-cylinder

Kiekhaefer O-45 The Righter/Kiekhaefer O-45 was an air-cooled, two-stroke aircraft engine of flat-twin configuration, used extensively for powering target drones in the late 1940s.

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 ...

producing .Parsch 2003

Operational history

The KD4G-1 first flew in 1949; soon afterwards an improved version, the KD4G-2, was introduced, however neither variant was produced in significant numbers.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * KD4G 1940s United States special-purpose aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft High-wing aircraft Target drones of the United States Aircraft first flown in 1949 {{aero-1940s-stub