Remoted Piloted Aircraft seem so… futuristic, but just how long have they’ve been around?
Hey guys, Julia here for DNews
While remote piloted aircraft seem like a weird future thing, radio controlled aircraft
go as far back as the second world war.
In 1934, the British Air Ministry ordered over 400 of a type of radio-controlled plane
called “Queen Bee”.
Fast forward a few years and what we think of as RPAs here in the US well they’re actually
as old as the space race.
Seriously.
Back when The Andy Griffith Show was on the air, the US Military was planning unmanned
aircraft.
One of the first programs was launched under the code name of "Red Wagon” . A few years
later the first military campaign such aircraft ever took part in was the Vietnam War.
The first of these, the AQM-34 Ryan Aeronautical “Lightning Bug”, could take photos from
the air, collect intelligence and even drop leaflets.
Their photographic abilities became so useful during that campaign that one expert, Dr.
Thomas P. Ehrhard says, "the Air Force depended almost entirely on them for bomb damage assessment
due to bad weather."
In total there were nearly 3500 UAV missions during the war.
And only about 500 were lost for various reasons.
But for a long time after the war, there wasn’t much interest in these aircraft anymore.
Until the Gulf War.
Remote piloted aircraft technology took off in the 1990s.
Back when I was watching Pokemon, engineers and researchers with the Air Force were designing
top of the line technology.
Many of the first generations of aircraft were for surveillance purposes during the
Gulf War, like the Air Force’s Predator.
According to a recent congressional report, the Military now heavily relies on these type
of aircraft.
Nearly 31% of their aircraft are unmanned.
And they are stealthier and safer than ever.
Most of them are little guys, like the Army’s Raven.
Which looks like a souped up toy plane to me.
Basically they are like little cameras with wings.
Fitted with color cameras and infrared night vision, these guys are like our military’s
eye in the sky.
And they’re pretty fast, they can fly at speeds up to 60 miles per hour.
Or perhaps you’re more familiar with the Air Force’s Predator RPA.
These are a little bit bigger and have been around for a while.
Early versions of the aircraft flew missions in the Balkans 20 years ago.
And because they can fly for a while and can carry infrared cameras, they were approved
in 2006 to fly in civilian airspace here in the US for search and rescue operations.
And they’re safer than they’ve ever been.
According to that recent congressional report, there were only 7.5 accidents per 100,000
hours of flight in 2012, which is less than the 20 accidents in 2005.
Unmanned aircraft have come a long way since the early days.
Now they’re used for protecting nature and maybe someday bringing packages straight to
your front door.
And we can probably thank the United States Air Force for some of this new technology.
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to break barriers both professionally and personally.
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So what do you think of the future of this technology?