QH-50 DASH Weapon System

01/14/2025

It's a rare event there days when someone looks at the DASH Weapon System and asks the question why the US Navy didn't fix their VTOL Drone program back in 1969 and instead went with a manned-system. Its even more rare when researchers actually get the technological conflicts that doomed DASH (mostly due to its WW2-based command and control system), but this british fellow, Ed Nash, really seemed to capture the technological to the political issues that made the Navy walk away from their 165-ship deployed, 800-aircraft, Drone Program in 1971....just so the ARMY could scoop up the survivors and create their premiere weapons-test facility at White Sands for the next 36 years....so enjoy the film. Take time to watch it... Thanks Ed.

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06/27/2024

This August 12th marks the 80th anniversary of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.'s untimely death and we remember his ultimate sacrifice while piloting a drone-controlled bomber that unfortunately exploded in-flight, as described in Roger Connor's moving article from a decade ago. Let us take a moment to reflect on this pivotal moment in history and honor his memory.

Seventy years ago, on August 12, 1944, Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. perished in one of the first American fatalities associated with a pilotless aircraft, which we usually know today as a drone or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The older brother of future president, John F. Kennedy, was taking p...

03/29/2024

The DASHmen took some time out to replace the QH-50 signage at the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum where the Program Office is now located....take a look at what the sun did over the last 4-years....the new vs the old...

11/11/2023

To the DASH Men of Old, especially those on the USS KEPPLER (DD-765) back in 1969 (shown)....To Veteran's Day, we salute you.

Photo submitted by the late Jim Battenfelder in August 2014.

10/30/2023

56 years ago, on 19-Sept-1967, we shot this film of QH-50D DASH ops from the destroyer, USS VESOLE (DD-878) while off the Atlantic Coast. It was a great film to show the Bird does come back if you direct it to......! It also illustrated the key involvement of the enlisted personnel to operate the system which was key as the DASH Officer billets were being raided by the Navy Carriers to support the Air War in Vietnam.....

10/02/2023

We were alerted today to the fact that the Chinese not only have created their own version of the QH-50 Drone but are now selling them to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan......each CR500 sells for $9 mil each and carries 8 anti-tank missiles.

Not sure how much longer the USA can sit on its hands while investing all VTOL UAV funding in the bumbling Fire Scout program while QH-50s sit in museums?

Promotional video of the new Chinese reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial vehicle of helicopter type Golden Eagle CR500.Development - Research Institute...

09/13/2023

It is with a profound sense of sadness that we announce the death of Mike Angelini on August 29, 2023. Mike served as DASH Weapon System Curator onboard the Museum-ship, USS JOSEPH P. KENNEDY JR. (DD-850) and he acted as if he owned the 2 aircraft in the DASH Hangar. It was Mike along with his son Rich who first met the DASHmen in the New Mexico desert at White Sands Missile Range back on July 16, 2001, to accept a spare QH-50C DASH Drone to be used as a display on Kennedy. What would follow in the 22 years we knew Mike would be joint trips to strip former US Navy warships on both coasts so that spare parts for KENNEDY's restoration could be obtained. There are no words to describe Mike's intense desire to make the DASH hangar on KENNEDY as complete as possible and we sent him pallets of parts over the years. His constant desire for a QH-50 SNOOPY RECON aircraft led us to build such an aircraft and payload over a 5-year period from spare parts and then deliver that Aircraft on May 15, 2009 (see photo).
Because Mike was the Intel guy when he served on the J.P. Kennedy Jr. during his Navy years, our Strip Team called him "Crypto" for Cryptographer and his knowledge of those systems allowed our West Coast Team to get an entire intact system from a retired Naval vessel for KENNEDY. Such Subject-matter-expertise was so vital in our missions and Mike freely helped with it; anything for the Kennedy. However, now the hangar is quiet and all that remain are the memories.
So rest dear brother, Mike, the remaining DASHmen will take the watch.

07/07/2023

Its been 22 years since the QH-50 DASH System flew the HELLFIRE Missile System at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). We killed the targets the Commanding General asked us to at the Florida range. To bad Lockheed-Martin gave us non-man-safe missiles to use (Lots of Back-blast).

Can you imagine if this system was around today, popping up in Ukraine and letting loose its payload? What a force multi-plier it would be. Alas, the General only had development funding....it went no further. This is the problem with the US DoD - they can't recognize innovation. But some other major Defense Contractor (MDC) will copy the idea, and charge $Billions for it, and fail at it, like NGC's Fire Scout.

Any yet, there is still no purpose-built VTOL Drone that replaced the QH-50. Certainly the last couple days of Slow-flying Predators being harassed by Russian jets over Syria answers one question; they track it easy enough. Enjoy the Qh-50s in museums around the United States. Hopefully someone is learning from it.

05/22/2023

A Year after the manned-test bed for the DSN-3 (later designated as QH-50C drone), here we are on the destroyer, USS BENNER (DD-807), flying a fleet delivered QH-50C for the Secretary of the Navy who is watching the demonstration from an Aircraft Carrier on the left. This was December 13, 1963. The DSN-3 will drop a MK-44 Torpedo Shape along with a dye pack.

05/11/2023

Proud to support the Caddo Mills, Texas-based, Unmanned Vehicle Museum which has a QH-50C Dash Drone. They are having an article come out in the Dallas paper this weekend. You can read all about it here....

In memory of their late father, the children of Harold Smith created a museum filled with the drones he collected.

05/10/2023

17 years ago.......was the last flight of the QH-50 DASH Weapon System .

After that last flight of The QH-50D DASH weapon system on May 5, 2006, we all took a final crew photo.
The Flight was done by QH-50D Helicopter, BuNo DS-1714 which had flown from the Navy destroyer, USS MASSEY (DD-778) 40 years earlier. Now, after over 44 years of continuous operations, over 800 aircraft delivered during DASH and another 200-aircraft-worth of parts assembled as additional aircraft at White Sands, this was it - just the Five of us and DS-1714 !

The pride of the U.S. Navy's VTOL drone program of 1961, as envisioned by CNO, Admiral Arleigh Burke, USN (can you see the original Navy markings on the bird?), but having been operated by the Army for the last 40 years had finally reached a critical point - we could not find any more vacuum tubes to part-support the 55-year old Navy-SRW-4C Ground Command and Control system and the Army would not change it because their customer base would not pay for it. And thus ended, the only heavy-lift, purpose-built VTOL-Drone program, the world has ever known. And just the 5 of us were there.

From Left to Right: Glen T. Gattis (40 year Drone Controller and SRW-4 Expert); Peter P. Papadakos (Gyrodyne Foundation - his Father was the founder of the company (Gyrodyne helicopters that closed in 1999) that built the QH-50 and he had worked with the aircraft since 1972; Robert Mack, DASH mechanic on the USS FRED T. BERRY (DD-858) (Gyrodyne Foundation), representing all 160 U.S. Navy Destroyers and Crews of the NAVY's DASH weapon system; Ken Ruble (30-Year QH-50 Master Mechanic & Mechanical Engineer) and Justin Miller, who was getting some Flight Ops training for the day. DS-1714 would be later disassembled to support the restoration of other QH-50s that went to museums, like DS-1660 at the Aerospace Museum of California.

04/30/2023

Back in August 1966, the prototype QH-50D was being tested at U.S. Naval Air Test Center - Patuxent River, MD. The D-model promised higher payload weights so the side racks used to drop sonobuoys were used to drop Air Expendable Bathythermographs. These Bathythermographs could then monitor seismic activity in the Ocean depths and relay that information back to the QH-50 DASH which would relay back to the launching ship.
From Left are Mr. Clinton F. Beckner, RADM M.E. Garrison, USN (ret), both of the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office, Mr. A. Paley (Gyrodyne), Lt. C. Nagel, USN, LT. R.W. Stone, USN and Mr. W.R. Gumert, all from the Oceanographic Office.