In the 1970s, there were groundbreaking demonstrations of armed remotely piloted vehicles and maneuvering remotely piloted vehicles using the Ryan Firebee platform.
The BGM-34 successfully deployed several types of ordnance, with the idea being to develop it into a multi-mission strike modular design that could be used for reconnaissance, strike, or electronic warfare missions.
And in fact, this idea was essentially employed in the later AFRL Low-Cost Autonomous Aircraft Platform Sharing program, or LCAAT, which bore the XQ-67A and became one of the first aircraft selected for the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program of Record.
There were also experiments done with a maneuvering Firebee that could pull up to six Gs, and it was dubbed the XQM-103.
Despite some amazing results from these demonstrations, this effort was canceled in late 1970s, and we would have to wait some decades before we saw armed uncrewed vehicles again.
Air Force Historian, Jeff Duford, joins the AFRL “Discovery to Delivery” video series to uncover the historic scope and role of AFRL’s critical research, which delivers today’s warfighting capabilities. More