An unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly called a drone, is an aircraft that carries no human pilot, crew or passengers on board and is instead flown autonomously or by remote control. Austrian forces attempted the earliest recorded military use of unmanned aircraft in 1849, launching roughly 200 incendiary balloons against Venice, though wind carried most off target, and the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo demonstrated a radio-control system called the Telekino at the Paris Academy of Science in 1903 as a way to test airships without risking a pilot. Powered radio-controlled flight followed in 1917, when Geoffrey de Havilland's monoplane, built for A. M. Low's Aerial Target program, flew successfully under radio control on 21 March, and the de Havilland Queen Bee aerial target drone entered mass production in 1935, with more than 400 built for military training, the first large-scale deployment of unmanned aircraft.
Facts
Patent or First-Use Date SignificanceDeveloped for military missions too dull, dirty or dangerous for humans 1 FAQs
What is the difference between a UAV and a UAS?
A UAV is only the aircraft; a UAS includes the ground controllers as well.
A UAV is the aircraft alone, the aerial platform. A UAS, an unmanned aircraft system, is the whole arrangement, meaning the ground equipment such as the controllers plus the aerial platform. A remotely piloted aircraft, or RPA, can be used interchangeably with UAV and is commonly used in Europe.
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In Field
Source Unmanned aerial vehicle (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Unmanned aerial vehicle, Wikipedia
History, first powered flight
Geoffrey de Havilland's monoplane was the one that flew under control on 21 March 1917 using his radio system.
History, first radio-controlled flight date
Geoffrey de Havilland's monoplane was the one that flew under control on 21 March 1917 using his radio system.
History, origins
UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans.
View the SourceUnmanned aerial vehicle (Wikipedia)
In Field: Aerospace Engineering, Categories
Avionics
In Group: Aircraft Avionics and Automated Flight Systems, Lead paragraph
is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers on board, which instead is either autonomous or controlled remotely
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