Ryan Model 154 Firefly (AQM-91 Compass Arrow)

Interesting program (COMPASS ARROW), abruptly halted after a prototype crashed.

Here are some photos of the real item:
 

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Pics of the crash:
 

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And:
 

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Yeah. Loads of Model 154 stuff has been added, mostly photos of the crash of the OTHER prototype (apparently at Holloman AFB), which means that BOTH prototypes crashed.
 
Yes. But no.

With all due respect to Mr. Sweetman (and I say this with no disrespect and zero snark), I believe that that he accurately reported someone else's misrepresentation of facts.

In point of fact, the Teledyne Ryan Aeronutical (TRA) portion of the Compass Arrow program EAC was estimated at about $120 million (in then-year dollars) in mid-1969 and probably did not exceed $150 million* at contractual closeout. This cost includes all the NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering, i.e. Research & Development, tooling, etc, subcontractor NRE) eight (and a half) T&E air vehicles and 20 initial production air vehicles. It is unclear if this cost includes expenses for the bespoke GE J97 engine and the payload systems (more likely supplied as GFE).

There were other costs borne by the Air Force, such as conversion of the DC-130E launch aircraft and the HH-3E recovery helicopters, use of test facilities and so on. Nonetheless, it is hardly conceivable that the total program cost was $2 billion in then-year dollars, even if you allocate all possible costs (and I'm not going into that unit cost, program unit cost, etc. hairball.)



Having said that, I believe that that number does have some basis in truth, a different truth. And that truth is the probability that the total acquisition and operational cost of the combined Ryan Model 147 and 154 programs probably did come in at about $2 billion*. But that encompasses well over 1,000 reconnaissance drones, support aircraft, GSE, personnel and all operational costs spread across 11-12 years, in combat operations. This for the only successful operational recce drone system at the time.

I'll leave it to the reader to work out who in Government and Industry that the "$2 billion Compass Arrow Program Cost" factoid would benefit and serve, and who it would not.

edits: "someone else's misrepresentation", "operational recce drone system", "who in Government and Industry that"
*my speculation
 
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If you put the effort into some basic research, you will find an answer way different from your $150m.

AMENDED: Tom Ehrhardt's paper cites $250m in TY, and $1.7 bn in FY2010$, so something seems to have gotten fat-fingered at some point. But that may not be all: the TRA contract would have been only part of it - the program carried the costs of a unique propulsion system, the first optical bar camera and a fully automatic active ESM/jamming system. The first two would almost certainly have been GFE and the last probably so.
 
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I agree that $250m TY as cited from Ehrhardt's thesis is a good ROM cost for the entire program.
 
I'm really fascinated by this bird. So much for the Have Blue and F-117 pioneering subsonic stealth.
I wonder about AQM-91 influence on them.
It is also interesting to note that the camera was an Itek KA-80A - and it flew on
a) this stealth drone
b) the U-2R as IRIS II
c) the SR-71
d) Apollo as PanCam
Impressive career and credentials !
 
Bill Sweetman says that during test of this vehicle they flew an AQM-91 all the way from West coast to Washington DC and back without any radar detecting it.
 
Orly? Where was that stated?
 
I don't know anything about that particular story, but Will Wagner documented substantial efforts into signature management work while operating the 147, and noted much of the work on the Bugs and other platforms couldn't get past the censors for publication in the book despite being over a decade old (1982 publication date).
The model 147S-2, for example, shows some pretty advanced (for late 60's) effort achieved by trial and error, principles, and not the famous Ufimtsev equation.

So, while eyebrow-raising, I'm not sure I'd immediately dismiss that story, either.
 

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Attached, a very good reading about drones harsh realities before the 90's (and the GPS era).
It had a good summary of Compass Arrow.


The original development
program was bid at $35 million, but contractors
later admitted they knew actual costs would be much
higher. A company publication explained the huge cost
escalation experienced by the program by saying, “The
154 [the company designation for Compass Arrow]
was a victim of too much optimism in the heat of a very
tough competition to get the business.”72 Only one year
after the contract was awarded, the NRO cut the production
number from 100 to a lean 20 airframes.
SNIP
Originally planned to be an
18-month program, Compass Arrow took five years to
yield 20 production airframes, at a final cost of $250
million, which equates to almost $1.7 billion in FY10
dollars.75 The unit cost of $65 million makes Compass
Arrow one of the most expensive drone aircraft ever.

Ouch... !
 

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Thank you for the document. An area of aviation I have wanted to read more. Somewhere I have a copy of "Lightning Bug(s)" that I read decades ago.
 
Was Model 154 RCS ever revealed ? how did it compared to, say, Have Blue and F-117 ?
 
FWIW, my dad (USAF nav/EWO) flew in support of aerial recon drones out of Takhli RTAFB in Thailand 1968-9. So SOME sort of drone was operational and worth safeguarding with both unarmed and armed aerial support. In later years while stationed at Davis-Monthan in Tucson, he was still working on UAV R&D and had some dealings with Teledyne Ryan in San Diego.
 
There something I don't understand, with COMPASS ARROW: the recovery. D-21B drone ejected a hatch, and a JC-130 snatched it midair.
The JC-130s were the same ones based at Hickam, Hawaii, to catch spysat film capsules. For the D-21B they would be positioned, either at Guam or at Okinawa: on the trajectory of a D-21B returning from Lop Nor.

In the case of the AQM-91 however, it wasn't a hatch caught by an Hercules; but the entire drone caught by a Sikorsky helicopter, through a MARS system.

My question: how would the Sikorsky get to the AQM-91 recovery area in the first place ? unlike an Herc' a chopper has very limited range.

Or would the compass Arrow head toward Takhli, Thailand rather than Okinawa / Guam ?
 
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