THE first drones were military. The use of pilotless flying machines as weapons dates back to the siege of Venice in 1849, when Austrian forces launched balloons laden with explosives against the city. But the origin of military drones is usually dated to the development of un-crewed, remote-controlled aircraft for use as targets by anti-aircraft gunners after the first world war. The first truly successful example was the de Havilland dh82b Queen Bee, which entered service in Britain in 1935 and seems to have been the inspiration for calling such aircraft "drones" (after stingless male bees); Germany's v-1 flying bomb was another early drone.
展开▼
