History of UAV's

UAVS

Unmanned aerial vehicles, known variously as UAVs, drones, and remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs), have been a feature of aviation for much of its history, though in limited or secondary roles, and often overlooked. For the purposes of this article, and to distinguish UAVs from missiles, a UAV is defined as being capable of controlled, sustained level flight and powered by a jet or reciprocating engine. The appeal of a military vehicle in which there is no risk of loss of life is quite strong, so the pace of development of UAVs has always reflected the pace of technology in general. Until recently, UAVs have tended to be small, so they depend on technology miniaturization even more than their manned siblings. In the 21st century, the technology has reached a point of sophistication that the UAV is now being given a greatly expanded role in war fighting.

British drones

The early successes of pilotless aircraft led to the development of radio controlled (RC) pilotless target aircraft in Britain and the US in the 1930s. In 1931, the British developed the Fairey "Queen" radio-controlled target from the Fairey IIIF floatplane, building a small batch of three, and in 1935 followed up this experiment by producing larger numbers of another RC target, the "DH.82B Queen Bee", derived from the De Havilland Tiger Moth biplane trainer. Through some convoluted path, the name of "Queen Bee" is said to have led to the use of the term "drone" for pilotless aircraft, particularly when they are radio-controlled.

Aerial torpedoes

The US Navy began experimenting with radio-controlled aircraft during the 1930s as well, resulting in the Curtiss "N2C-2" drone in 1937. By the outbreak of World War II, obsolescent aircraft were being put into service as target drones as the "A-series" targets. Since the "A" code would be also used for "Attack" aircraft, later "full-sized" targets would be given the "PQ" designation. During the war the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) would acquire hundreds of Culver "PQ-8" target drones, which were radio-controlled versions of the tidy little Culver Cadet two-seat light civil aircraft, and thousands of the improved Culver "PQ-14" derivative of the PQ-8. The US also used RC aircraft, including modified B-17 and B-24 bombers, in combat on a small scale during World War II as aerial torpedoes, though with no great success.

Pulsejets

Although small piston engines were the normal powerplant for target drones in this era, there was something of a fad for pulsejet propulsion as well, though it doesn't appear that the US military ever acquired any pulsejet-powered targets in more than modest numbers.

McDonnell built a pulsejet-powered target, the T2D2-1 Katydid, later the KDD-1 and then KDH-1. It was an air-launched cigar-shaped machine with a straight mid-mounted wing, and a vee tail straddling the pulsejet engine. The Katydid was developed in mid-war and a small number were put into service with the US Navy.

After the war, the Navy obtained small numbers of another pulsejet-powered target, the KD2C Skeet series, built by Curtiss. It was another cigar-shaped machine, with the pulsejet in the fuselage and intake in the nose. It featured straight, low-mounted wings with tip tanks, and a triple-fin tail.

This article contains material that originally came from the web article Unmanned Aerial Vehicles by Greg Goebel, which exists in the Public Domain.