UAV HISTORY
Much of the equipment and technology associated with UAV’s are relatively new, but the concept is not. Prior to the US entering World War I, the US Navy (USN) developed a seaplane that could operate without a pilot onboard! Experimentation would continue on the concept through the 1920s and 1930s. The Navy developed and used a rather small wood UAV in World War II to attack heavily defended and protected targets on the ground.
The Army Air Corps experienced very heavy losses of aircraft and of trained aircrews in World War II and thus began the Aphrodite Project. Aphrodite was put into motion using old B-17 aircrafts that were loaded with explosives, flown to altitude by a pilot, who then bailed out with a parachute. A second B-17 assumed radio control of the now airborne UAV and directed it to fly into a given target. After World War II, drone B-17’s were used in atom bomb / atomic testing in the South Pacific.
Fort Huachuca was the location in the late 1950s that the Army placed cameras on target drones and started their development on an operational UAV reconnaissance system. Many years later they replaced the camera’s with an onboard television system.
By 1964, the Air Force began a drone reconnaissance program, know as “Buffalo Hunter”, was under full development. This program utilized a C-1 30D aircraft that could carry up to two drones under each wing, flying out of Vietnam they would launch them like missiles on a preprogrammed flight route over enemy held territories. From the mid 1960s until the bitter end of the Vietnam War, well over 3,000 missions were flown over North Vietnam and over China.
The Navy also utalized UAVs during the Vietnam War. One program, called DASH, it was an RC helicopter carrying a TV camera and two 250lbs torpedoes and was used to detect and destroy N. Vietnam supply barges in the Mekong Delta waterways. Although this program enjoyed several successes, the helicopter flight gyroscopes were not up to standard therefore the program was discontinued by the Navy.
UAV’s in the mid-1980s. A joint project, named the Pioneer UAV system, came into being. The Pioneer was used in the Operation Desert Storm and provided intelligence and fire support information to the commander with outstanding results.
Several other countries such as Israel, several European countries, and the former Soviet Union have also integrated UAV’s into their military operations with high degrees of success.
UAV’s in Operation Iraqi Freedom, there was a need for timely and actionable intelligence underlined the increased need for UAVs. In 2004 it was reported that Army Brigades operating in Iraq had their number of UAV’s assigned to them increase from two to three. Each brigade was to be assigned four teams of 22 soldiers that would operate the 450 UAV’s reported to be in Iraq.