As per Scheve
(2008) the very first experimentation with drone aircraft can be linked back to
World War I which saw both the Entente and Central powers testing
radio-controlled unmanned aircraft.
However, it
wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s that drone aircraft became widely used. Zaloga
(2008) states that the first large-scale use of unmanned aerial vehicles was
during the Vietnam War “where they flew thousands of spy missions too hazardous
for manned reconnaissance aircraft” (page 4).
Over the
course of the 1970s the United States flew more than 34,000 surveillance
flights using the AQM-34 Ryan Firebee, a drone launched from a host plane and
operated by users within that plane. At
this point drone aircraft were principally used by military forces for the
reconnaissance purposes.
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| Picture 2. AQM-34 Ryan Firebee |
Darack (2011)
explains that in the 1980s the Israeli Army began to modify existing UAVs and
develop new designs. This led to the creation
of small, lighter unmanned aircraft like the RQ-2 Pioneer, which was used
extensively in the 1991 Gulf War.
Within the last few years commercial and recreational drones have gained in popularity and it seems that this trend is set to continue. |
| Picture 3. RQ-2 Pioneer |
The RQ-1
Predator, probably the best-known UAV, made its test flight in 1994. Darack states that “the Predator has
continually evolved and its variants are now used to patrol the U.S.-Mexico
border and to unleash Hellfire air-to-ground missiles on military targets”
(para 9).
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| Picture 4. RQ-1 Predator |
