The Marquardt Company was established in 1944 by Roy E. Marquardt, a Cal Tech trained aeronautical engineer, for the purpose of studying subsonic ram-jet engines. However, development work was also done on pulsejets, a very simple type of jet engine in which combustion occurs in pulses. This type of propulsion was used in the famous World War II German V-1 buzz bombs. Pulsejet engines can be made with few or no moving parts, and are capable of running at static conditions.

Marquardt applied pulsejets in a helicopter test-bed. The M-14 or "Whirlajet" (N4107K), was a one person, open cockpit, experimental, first of its kind, helicopter with 884 cm (29 ft) diameter blades, and a simplified steel tubing structure. Directional control was ensured by means of a rudder. At each tip of the two-bladed rotor were located pulsejet engines similar to this artifact. It flew its test flights in 1948 but was never commercially built.