A Short History of Drones
The term drone is used to refer to a type of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and it can be either autonomous (i.e. they fly themselves) or a remotely piloted vehicle (RPV).
As with so many technological advancements in modern society, the story of drones starts with conflict and military budgets before the breakthrough to mass adoption.
The 1800's
1839 is generally accepted as the birth year of practical photography. By 1883, the first aerial photograph was taken - using a kite, a camera and a very long string attached to the shutter-release of the camera. In 1898, this technology was put to use in the Spanish-American War, resulting in the first military aerial reconnaissance photos.
A Winged Detour: Pigeon Photography
Pigeon photography is an aerial photography technique invented in 1907 by the German apothecary; Julius Neubronner. Developed as a way to combine his two hobbies of pigeon fancying and amateur photography, his design consisted of a light miniature camera that could be fitted to a pigeon’s breast by means of a harness. However, given the lack of control over the behaviour of the pigeon (as well as the rapid parallel development of aviation) the technique was never widely adopted, and the resulting aerial images were ultimately viewed as a curiosity.
World War I
It wasn’t long, however, before unmanned aerial technology was weaponised.
The Kettering Aerial Torpedo, later called the “Kettering Bug,” was a small biplane powered by a 4-cylinder engine and guided by gyroscopes, a barometer, and a mechanical “computer.” Developed in 1918, it had a range of up to 75 miles but despite being widely trialled, it was never used in actual combat.
“Drones”
During the inter-war period, the development and testing of unmanned aircraft continued. In 1935 the British produced a number of radio-controlled aircraft to be used as targets for training purposes. It’s thought the term ‘drone’ started to be used at this time, inspired by the name of one of these models, the DH.82B Queen Bee.
World War II
British-born actor Reginald Denny, who had served in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, developed a fascination with radio-controlled aircraft in the 1930s. He and his partners formed the Radioplane Company and created the “Radioplane OQ-2,” the first mass-produced UAV, at their southern California-based facility. Eventually the company rolled out nearly 15,000 airplanes for the U.S. Army and Navy, who used the Radioplanes as targets for anti-aircraft training.
The United States also attempted to weaponise un-piloted bombers during World War II, using specially modified B-17 Flying Fortresses and other airplanes loaded with explosives. Personnel on a mothership (which was fitted with television receivers and radio control equipment) would guide the drone to German V-2 launch sites. That was the plan, anyway. None of the B-17s ever made it to their intended targets.
Fu-Go Balloons
The first truly intercontinental weapon system, Japan’s “Fu-Go” (meaning “Fire”) balloons, were hydrogen-filled balloons measuring 30 feet in diameter. Each carried a payload of 32 paper sandbags, two incendiary devices, one small bomb, and an altitude regulation mechanism.
Launched from Japan, the balloons would rise to roughly 30,000 ft, where they would hitch a ride on the jet stream. As hydrogen leaked out slowly, the balloon descended. At 25,000 ft, the altitude regulation system would drop one of the sand bags, causing the balloon to rise back to 35,000 feet. This continued until just the incendiary devices and bomb remained; then they too were dropped on the last dips to 25,000 feet. The Japanese launched up to 9,300 of these balloons during WWII, but only 300 actually reached North America. They caused six deaths: a woman and five students who happened upon one of the unexploded bombs during a church picnic in Oregon.
V-1 “Buzz Bombs”
Perhaps the best-known unmanned vehicle of World War II was the German V-1 “Buzz Bomb”. Meant to kill British civilians the V-1 was powered by a pulsejet engine that made a distinctive buzz. It carried a 2,000-pound warhead approximately 150 miles, and had a sophisticated guidance system. Once over the target, the guidance system put the V-1 into a steep dive. The Germans launched roughly 20,000 V-1s at Allied targets, primarily in London and Antwerp, Belgium. The Buzz Bombs proved devastating, killing more than 10,000 civilians.
Post-World War II
Reginald Denny’s Radioplane Company, which was acquired in 1952 by Northrop Aircraft Incorporated, led the way in post-World War II UAV development. While most of the drones designed and produced during this period were used for target practice, 1955 saw the U.S. Army’s first reconnaissance drone, the Northrop Radioplane RP-71 Falconer, based on a target vehicle design. Launched by two rockets and recovered by parachute, the Falconer carried a still film camera and could transmit crude video.
A second-generation turbojet-powered Firebee, built by Ryan Aeronautical Company, and developed from a target drone initially developed for the U.S. Air Force, led to the AQM-34, which ushered in modern unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Reconnaissance UAVs were first deployed on a large scale in the Vietnam War. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the AQM-34 flew tens of thousands of missions over North Vietnam, parts of China, and even the Soviet Union, obviating the risk posed by manned reconnaissance flights.
Israel makes an Entrance
Following the Vietnam War other countries outside of Britain and the United States began to explore unmanned aerial technology. In the 1970s, Israel began to modify existing UAVs and develop new designs. A notorious story about Israeli use of UAVs came from the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. A “swarm” of Northrop Chukar unmanned craft was directed towards the Golan Heights with the intention of giving the Syrian military the impression that they were under a massive air attack. Syrias response resulted in a depletion of their air defence. In subsequent years, Israel took the global lead in certain types of UAVs, particularly in the 1980s with the development of lighter, smaller unmanned aircraft like the RQ-2 Pioneer which flew extensively in the 1991 Gulf War.
The RQ-1 Predator, probably the best-known modern military UAV, made its first test flight in 1994. Produced by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems — based on a design by Abraham Karem, a former engineering officer for the Israeli Air Force — it was designed for “long loiter” reconnaissance work. Variants of the Predator now patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, collect air samples for scientific research, and unleash Hellfire air-to-ground missiles on military targets.
Soaring even higher than the Predator, the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long endurance aircraft. It can fly more than 32 hours at a stretch and loiter at altitudes as high as 65,000 feet, with sensors that can see through clouds, dense fog, haze, and dust storms. Utilising a super-fast data transmission rate, operators can view very high resolution imagery of wide swaths of the ground below.
As we have seen, the key hardware — sensors that give UAVs useful vision and controls that put them where people want them — was developed for military operations. Perhaps as a result, the UAV industry in the United States (which has the largest defence budget in the world) is robust, with makers of aircraft, control units, sensors, and more scattered across the country. Other centres of UAV innovation, however, are taking hold around the world.
In the post-9/11 environment, whilst military drone use has undoubtedly expanded significantly, drones now have many functions, ranging from monitoring climate change to carrying out search operations after natural disasters, photography, filming, and delivering goods.
In a future article, we will explore the more recent history of drone mass adoption and we will see that peaceful uses of UAVs are really limited only by imagination.
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