The Lockheed MQM-105 Aquila (Eagle) was the first small battlefield drone developed in the United States during the 1970s to act as a target designator for the US Army.

The program was conceptualized in January 1973 in the joint U.S. Army and DARPA-funded project called RPAODS (Remotely Piloted Aerial Observer Designator System).

The RPV-STD effort created a non-stealthy tailless air vehicle with anhedral wing tips, that was launched by a pneumatic launcher, and was recovered in a trampoline-like structure which held a net.

This target acquisition, designation and aerial reconnaissance (TADAR) program effort produced a stealthy tailless aircraft driven by a Herbrandson piston engine with a 26-inch (660 mm) pusher propeller.

Secure communications with the air vehicle was provided by a joint Army/Air Force program called Modular Integrated Communications/Navigational System (MICNS).

On the nose of the air vehicle was a Near IR source which interacted with the Recovery System to automatically recover the aircraft after the flight.

The hydraulically operated Recovery System, built by Dornier, consisted of a vertical net held by a frame work shaped like an inverted "h" into which the air vehicle would automatically fly.

The DT IIA began in February 1986 and successfully completed in May 1986 although reliability problems continued to dog the system.

Aviation Week and Space Technology Magazine showed residual assets being used in US Army/South Korea war games in 1988.

Within a year of the 1979 contract award, Congress zeroed the funding for the program as part of an overall budget reduction effort.

To save program costs, the operational approach was modified from self-contained units to centralized launch and recovery with in-flight hand-offs between ground stations.

[citation needed] When the Israelis demonstrated the real world usefulness of RPV's in the Beqaa Valley in 1982, U. S. support for the systems jumped.

Lockheed also considered a variant of the Aquila named the "Altair" for international sales, but without the government production tooling the program was unaffordable.