History of remote control and drone warfare

By JoeMcG
  • Perley's Aerial Bomber

    An inventor from New York named Charles Perley, registers a patent for an unmanned aerial bomber. Perley designed a hot-air balloon that had explosives on it and had a timer on it, that when reached sero exploded.
  • Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane

    During World War 1, Elmer Sperry and his son Lawrence collaborated with Peter Hewitt to create a pilotless aircraft that could carry and drop bombs onto enemies. The flying bomb was never used as the Armistice was siged before the US could ever deploy them.
  • The Queen Bee

    Based on the plane designed by Geoffrey de Havilland, this UAV was one of the first radio-controlled target drones that used wings from other manned planes, and for cost-effectiveness had a wooden fuselage. 405 Bees were built.
  • V-2 rockets

    These long range ballistic missiles, used by Nazi Germany form 1944 to 1952, were used as a vengence weapon against the allied bombing of German villages. It was deisgned by Peenemunde Army Research Centre and manufactured by Mittelwerk GmbH.
  • Lockheed U-2

    Nicknamed "Dragon Lady", this high altitude UAV is operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and was piloted by the CIA. The U-2 is used for high-altitude, all weather intelligence gathering, satellite calibration and communication. Some of the initial versions of the U-2 were used in the Cold War. During this time, a man called Gary Powers was shot down by the Soviet Union forces which caused much deliberation a about the use of drones in warfare.
  • Ryan SPA 147

    Designed and built by the US for surveillance, and fitted with a 300 pound camera to take photographs and pick up on radio conversations. This UAV could fly for 8 hours with a height of 60,000ft where no missiles cpuld shoot them down.
  • Scout

    Made by Israel, this drone has a 13 foot wingspan and is made out of fibreglass. The UAV emits extremely low amounts of radar signature and its small size makes it near impossible to be shot down. The Scout UAV can transmit real-time, 360-degree surveillance data via a television camera in its central turret. The Scout UAV was also very cheap to create allowing the Israeli Military to use a large amount against Syria when they were in conflict during 1982
  • AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven

    The RQ-11 Raven is a small hand-launched UAV developed by the US military, but is now used by military forces all over the world. The plane can fly up to 6.2 miles at flying speeds of 60mph. The Raven can be remote controlled or fly completely autonomously using GPS signals. The Raven can provide day or night aerial surveillance, surveillance, target acquisition and reconassaince.
  • General Atomics MQ-1 Predator

    The Predator is perhaps the most well known drone currently being used by the US. The aircraft, in use since 1995, has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and Somalia. The Predator can fly up to 740km, hover overhead for 14 hours, then retreat back to its landing zone. The offensive uses for the Predator are classified by the US government, who have declined to publicly discuss the offensive uses.
  • General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle

    The Gray Eagle is a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft system (UAS). It is a modern masterpiece of military engineering and represents the strength and power of the United States of America.There have been 75 of theses UAV's made as of October 2013.