The Lockheed Martin Polecat (company designation P-175) was an

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controll ...

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

. It was developed by the company's Advanced Development Programs division in

Palmdale Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. The city lies in the Antelope Valley region of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the Los Angeles Basin to the south. On Aug ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

Design and development

Designated P-175, the Polecat was funded internally by Lockheed Martin (as opposed to using

United States Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

funds) at the beginning of 2005. The prototype was unveiled at the 2006

Farnborough Airshow The Farnborough Airshow, officially the Farnborough International Airshow, is a trade exhibition for the aerospace and defence industries, where civilian and military aircraft are demonstrated to potential customers and investors. Since its fir ...

.Farnborough picture: Lockheed Martin Skunk Works releases picture of secret Polecat UAV
" ''

Flight International ''Flight International'' is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", it is the world's olde ...

''. July 19, 2006. Retrieved July 12, 2013Aviation Week ShowNews Farnborough Day 4 E-zine
." ''

Aviation Week & Space Technology ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', often abbreviated ''Aviation Week'' or ''AW&ST'', is the flagship magazine of the Aviation Week Network. The weekly magazine is available in print and online, reporting on the aerospace, defense and aviatio ...

''. July 20, 2006. It was developed over a period of 18 months.Butler, A.
Lockheed Unveils Secret Polecat UAV Design
" ''Aviation Week & Space Technology''. July 19, 2006. On December 18, 2006, the aircraft crashed due to an "irreversible unintentional failure in the flight termination ground equipment, which caused the aircraft's automatic fail-safe flight termination mode to activate."Trimble, S.

" ''Flightglobal.com''. July, 2007.

Specifications

References

{{Lockheed aircraft

Polecat Polecat is a common name for several mustelid species in the order Carnivora and subfamilies Ictonychinae and Mustelinae. Polecats do not form a single taxonomic rank (i.e. clade). The name is applied to several species with broad similarities ...

2000s United States experimental aircraft Unmanned military aircraft of the United States Twinjets Flying wings Unmanned stealth aircraft