The Culver line of low elliptical wing, two seat sport planes were designed by the energetic Al Mooney, before he formed the company under his name. It was a tail dragger, with a 130 mph cruise on 75-85hp, leaving Cubs and T-craft in its dust. With the war intervening, it was given more stable tri-gear and turned into a target drone.
The PQ-14s were available on the surplus market for a fraction of the liaison Cubs, Aeroncas, etc. mostly due to the single seat. A number of schools used them as post solo craft for students to build flight time in. I had a handful of time in them, often rented for $5-8/hr. wet!
OK ... True confessions. This was the first plane I crashed.
Being about 16 in the late '50s, with many hundreds of hours of glider, CAP lightplane and WWII PT/BT/AT time, I was convinced I was the equivalent of Smilin' Jack ... able to fly anything. A guy had bought a Culver drone, and spent months lavishing time rebuilding it in his San Antonio garage. It was beautiful, and he'd only flown a Tri-Champ, he was wary of it, and asked me to test hop it.
All was excellent, and it jumped up, and responded well to a good sequence of test maneuvers. I made a few sporty passes to show off before settling into the grass strip. It was a little rough, not a factor as I landed on the mains, keep the nose up until the speed bled off, and let the nose settle ... then it went all to hell!
The forged fork snapped right at the strut; the strut dug in, and the engine broke free along with the firewall, rolling under the plane. The harness and seat pulled out, and with the firewall and panel gone, I found myself skidding across the turf on my butt and back ... fortunately, I was wearing my treasured leather jacket.
The field paralleled a rural road, and some oil workers were passing in a jeep. Seeing the landing disappear into a cloud of dust, they drove through the barbed wire fence, right up to the wreck. I got to my feet, as they were tearing into the wreck, and I asked them what they were doing. "Trying to find the pilot," they answered, and didn't believe me when I said I was the pilot. Only when I pointed out I was missing a shoe, and it was there in the remains of the instrument panel, did they understand.
I've got a closeup pix taken about that moment, but buried with old log books.
I'm all but convinced that the fork had been stressed during wartime drone flights, but the owner felt I had landed on the nose gear. Feeling guilty, I took over the rebuilding project. Amazingly, the wing, and even the engine had little damage, only the very nose, and I knew of another orphan fuselage in some hangar rafters. Basically, it only took a few weeks to get it back into shape, and I urged him to get all the metal bits magnafluxed ... and did NOT offer to test fly it when done!
ANOTHER BIT ON FLYING WING TIP FUEL TANKS - The Air Force experimented with winged tip tanks for B-29s and B-50s, much like a tip to tip fighter with increased volume for fuel than just a tip tank, and extra wing area to support the load. They would use a droppable strut and wheel for takeoff, and the pairs would be jettisoned when empty.