page_title: Ryan Model 147
section_title: Surviving Aircraft
hierarchical_section_title: Ryan Model 147 / Surviving Aircraft
caption_attribution_description: English: RPV-007, one of eight strike drones.
context_page_description: The Ryan Model 147 Lightning Bug is a jet-powered drone, or unmanned aerial vehicle, produced and developed by Ryan Aeronautical from the earlier Ryan Firebee target drone series.
  Beginning in 1962, the Model 147 was introduced as a reconnaissance RPV for a United States Air Force project named Fire Fly. Over the next decade — assisted with secret funding from the recently formed National Reconnaissance Office along with support of the Strategic Air Command and Ryan Aeronautical's own resources — the basic Model 147 design would be developed into a diverse series of variants configured for a wide array of mission-specific roles, with multiple new systems, sensors and payloads used, modified and improved upon during the operational deployment of these drones in Southeast Asia. Missions performed by the Model 147 series RPVs included high- and low-altitude photographic and electronic aerial reconnaissance, surveillance, decoy, electronic warfare, signals intelligence, and psychological warfare.
  The Ryan drones were designed without landing gear for simplicity and to save weight.
context_section_description: It was previously thought that none of the eight test models of the BGM-34B (Ryan Model 234A) operational strike RPV were left to exist.  A recent discovery by the A.U.V.M (Aviation Unmanned Vehicle Museum), however has pulled the BGM-34B drone, RPV-007, out of storage and the bird is undergoing restoration.  It is currently on display at the drone museum; the owner of the bird is Retired USAF - LT COL HAROLD "RED" F. SMITH.
caption: BGM-34B, RPV-007 on display
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