the marine corps eventually concluded that both the ron, and the competing hiller roe were too heavy and too difficult to fly and abandoned the project. the united states navy, however, had noticed the compact size and high load-carrying capacity of the ron, and in 1960 awarded a contract to gyrodyne to produce a radio-controlled drone version of the rotorcycle, to be used as an anti-submarine warfare (asw) platform. using the dynamic components of the ron, this was eventually developed as the gyrodyne qh-50.