Northrop AQM-35
supersonic drone
The AQM-35 was a supersonic target drone produced by the Northrop Corporation.
Overview
The AQM-35 program began life in 1953 as the Model RP-61 supersonic target drone. In June 1954 the United States Air Force awarded Northrop a contract for development of the project as the Q-4; the first flight-capable XQ-4 was launched in 1956.
The XQ-4 was capable of either ground or air launch, though the former mode was never tested. It was powered by a Westinghouse XJ81-WE-3 turbojet, allowing it to reach speeds of Mach 1.55. The drone's course was followed with radar, and flight commands were sent by a radio telemetry system. When the mission was completed the XQ-4 would deploy a three-stage parachute system along with four large inflatable airbags to cushion the impact with the ground.
The Air Force planned to use the Q-4 as a target for various surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles. A secondary reconnaissance function was planned, with TV or cameras carried. The drone was air-launched by a Lockheed DC-130 Hercules drone controller aircraft, or other carrier aircraft.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Northrop AQM-35” is supersonic drone. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Northrop, AQM-35 and supersonic, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q14917132. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1954 and 1956.
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This entry incorporates text from “Northrop AQM-35” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.