The History of UAS

Introduction

Unmanned aerial vehicles have come a long way. The first one a basic RC like aircraft that had simple controls and was used as target practice for gunners and pilots to practice shooting down targets during WW2 called the Kettering Bug. Many of these unmanned aircraft didn't even have sensors for data gathering until later. 

Post-WWII UAS

As the jet age loomed with the end of WWII the technologies had to adapt. The Ryan Firebee was similar to the Kettering Bug but was instead a jet-powered version. This was used in the same way as the Kettering Bug as target practice but was more accurate towards the current times simulating a Russian Mig or other jet aircraft. This was imperative for training soldiers as most of the military aircraft was turning towards jet power. 

As the cold war started to build there was a large concern with the number of subs that the USSR was able to produce. In order to combat this, the US military developed an unmanned helicopter with a TV camera that helped spot subs from the air. These being relatively cheap and easy to make they become a sort of disposable device to use when detecting subs.

As the cold drove on the U-2 spy plane was created for intelligence gathering over the soviet union. As the flights increased in frequency the USSR was furious and would try everything they could to shoot them down. Eventually, they succeeded and shot one down in 1960. This lead to the development of the Ryan model 136. A U-2 like aircraft that was unmanned and intended to be used for the same purpose, although it was canceled due to the SR-71.

Although the US had these new intelligence-gathering methods development on UAS platforms continued. A newer Firebee was designed and used in intelligence missions over Taiwan. This platform was called the FireFly and they flew 160 missions. Initially, the success rate of these aircraft was quite low and made it quite difficult to recover the data that they were gathering. This was due to a parachute and recovery system that didn't keep the vehicles intact and destroyed the data that they gathered because of this. As the wrinkles were ironed out the success rate increased and the missions continued.

Conclusion

UAS platforms of the present didn't just appear overnight. They had to be developed and tested extensively in order for them to function correctly. As with the creation of GPS, the military was the best group to do this testing as they had the budget and the expertise with developing cutting edge tools and devices to protect the US. As the technology moved to a more civilian area the building blocks that were learned with the Firebee, and FireFly. Without these aircraft unmanned systems as we know of today wouldn't exist or at least in the same way.