Air Force Museum
Culver PQ-14B
In August 1940 the U.S. Army Air Corps joined in the development of radio-controlled target aircraft for training anti-aircraft artillery gunners. These unmanned targets would be controlled by radio signals from the ground or a "mother" aircraft, but would have provisions for carrying a pilot for ferry flights or check flights. The Culver Aircraft Corp.
In depth
History & service
submitted the only design that was accepted for production and subsequently became a major producer of radio-controlled aerial target aircraft for the Army and Navy during World War II.
Culver built three basic models in quantity for the Army (with corresponding models for the Navy). The PQ-8, powered by a 90-hp engine, was based on the civilian Culver Model LFA Cadet sport airplane and was succeeded by the faster PQ-8A. The success of the PQ-8 series led to the development of the larger and faster PQ-14 with a retractable landing gear and fuselage, wings and tail components made of wood with stressed plywood skin.
During WWII, the USAAF procured 2,043 PQ-14s, 1,198 of which went to the Navy.
The aircraft in figures
Engine: Franklin O-300 of 150 hp · Maximum speed: 185 mph · Cruising speed: 154 mph · Range: 362 miles · Ceiling: 17,000 ft. · Span: 30 ft. 0 in. · Length: 19 ft. 6 in. · Height: 8 ft. 4 in. · Weight: 1,820 lbs. maximum · Serial number: 44-68462
Aircraft change the battlefield
In the First World War, aircraft became valuable because they could see beyond the front line. Reconnaissance and artillery observation affected decisions on the ground. Once that information mattered, opposing forces had reason to attack the aircraft gathering it. Fighters, defensive armament, and increasingly specialized missions developed around this contest over observation and freedom of movement.
The aircraft were fragile by later standards, but their crews worked inside a rapidly expanding military system. Training, maintenance, replacement aircraft, photography, communications, and weather reporting supported each sortie. Improvements in engines and armament changed tactics, while the pressures of combat exposed weaknesses that might have taken much longer to discover in peacetime.
Personal stories should be read alongside those systems. A uniform or a named aircraft connects the war to an individual, but the individual depended on many others and operated under constraints that skill could not eliminate. Aircraft from opposing sides show how designers answered similar problems in different ways. The later military collections in Dayton and at Udvar-Hazy reveal what endured: the need to gather information, protect friendly forces, move people and supplies, and coordinate action across distance. The scale changed enormously; the relationship between an aircraft's design and the job it had to perform remained fundamental.
