Apr 032013
One of the first modern attempts to field a battlefield drone was the Lockheed MQM-105 Aquila (Eagle). Designed in the 1970’s and test flown in the first half of the 1980’s, the Aquila was intended as a target designator… a laser in a belly turret would pick out targets for Copperhead and Hellfire missiles. The Aquila looked pretty spiffy, but was expensive, didn’t quite work as hoped, and had a complex launch and recovery system (a pneumatic truck-mounted catapults, and a large truck-mounted catch-net). It was cancelled in 1987.
