In 1985, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and AeroVironment used "Quetzalcoatlus northropi" as the basis for an experimental ornithopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). They produced a half-scale model weighing , with a wingspan of . Coincidentally, Douglas A. Lawson, who discovered "Q. northropi" in Texas in 1971, named it after John "Jack" Northrop, a developer of tailless flying wing aircraft in the 1940s. The replica of "Q. northropi" incorporates a "flight control system/autopilot which processes pilot commands and sensor inputs, implements several feedback loops, and delivers command signals to its various servo-actuators". It is on exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum.