Radioplane Company
During World War II, they produced over 9,400 of their Radioplane OQ-3 model, a propeller-powered monoplane, making it the most-used target aircraft in the US.
In the post-World War II era they introduced their Radioplane BTT series, which was produced for years and eventually reached almost 60,000 examples.
One of the last projects carried out at the original Radioplane factory in Van Nuys, California, was the construction of the Gemini Paraglider.
The two formed Reginald Denny Industries in 1935 to develop a new radio controlled model, and were joined by electronics engineer Kenneth Case.
For the next three years they attempted to produce a design known as the Radioplane One, or RP-1, essentially a greatly enlarged model airplane, complete with a fuselage area that included the step where a windscreen was in a real aircraft.
Thiele at Fort MacArthur in Los Angeles, who complained that it cost $300 to have an aircraft tow a target for gunnery practice.
[7] In an effort to interest the US Army in the design, they had demonstrated the RP-1 at Dale Dry Lake on 21 February 1938,[8] but the radio failed and it crashed.
[6] In November, they demonstrated the RP-3, which used welded steel tubing in place of glue-and-screwed balsa wood for the framework, and added the new feature of a parachute that could be activated when the flight was completed, making landings a simple push-button task.
[10] Denny and Whittier sought bankers to provide bridge financing, and one of these put them in touch with Whitney Collins, a vice-president at Menasco Motors Company and budding entrepreneur.
Testing was accomplished by mounting the models to a framework on the front of a Packard Twelve Senior and driving across Muroc Dry Lake at speeds up to 120 miles per hour (190 km/h).
She was photographed working on the OQ-3, which led to a screen test for Norma Jeane Dougherty, who soon changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.
A 60 horsepower (45 kW) O-60 four-cylinder engine from McCulloch Motors Corporation provided speeds of 195 miles per hour (314 km/h) on two experimental RP-15's (OQ-6A) in November 1944.
By the end of the war the company's factory floor had expanded from 979 square feet in 1940 to 69,500 spread over five buildings, and was delivering 50 drones a day.
[18] The company, along with production partner Frankfort, ultimately produced nearly fifteen thousand drones during the Second World War.
[14] Shortly after the end of the war the company produced a report sponsored by the Office of Naval Research with proposals for small aircraft capable of carrying a single marine over irradiated territory in an amphibious assault.
[20] For even higher speeds, the company began experimenting with pulsejet systems immediately after the war, building two experimental designs, the RP-21 and RP-26.
In response to a call for high-speed target drones from the newly formed US Air Force, in 1950 the company introduced the Radioplane Q-1, powered by a small pulsejet.
