Does drone technology has it's orgins in..

DarkyHughes

IRA remote controlled bombs & similar devises.

sparky42

DarkyHughes wrote: »

IRA remote controlled bombs & similar devises.

Drones predate the Troubles, the US Navy had the DASH drones since the 50's for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrodyne_QH-50_DASH

In WW2 you had Goliath remote controlled mine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_tracked_mine

Just 2 examples of Unmanned tech in use then

schtinggg

German V1

BlaasForRafa

I think you're all a bit off track. The idea behind drones is that they have the capability to loiter and conduct reconnaissance and attack designated targets or attack targets of opportunity.

I'd compare their roles to those that the Douglas Skyraider or North American OV-10 carried out in the vietnam war, just with remote control rather than a pilot in the craft.

sparky42

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I think you're all a bit off track. The idea behind drones is that they have the capability to loiter and conduct reconnaissance and attack designated targets or attack targets of opportunity.

How's that different from the DASH system I mentioned?

BlaasForRafa

sparky42 wrote: »

How's that different from the DASH system I mentioned?

The Dash was severely limited and only in service for a few years before it was withdrawn.

Kat1170

There was a programme about the history of drones on PBS America Sky Ch 534 last week. I didn't pay much heed to it at the time but given Sky's penchant for repeats it should come around again soon enough.

Jawgap

No, the yanks were using UAVs to do BDA during ROLLING THUNDER and the LINEBACKER strikes - and started using them as early as 1964 for photo recce. Google Operation BLUE SPRING or BUMBLE BUG or BUMPY ACTION for more info.

BUFFALO HUNTER is probably the best documented programme from the early 1970s.

Jawgap

sparky42 wrote: »

Drones predate the Troubles, the US Navy had the DASH drones since the 50's for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrodyne_QH-50_DASH

In WW2 you had Goliath remote controlled mine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_tracked_mine

Just 2 examples of Unmanned tech in use then

You also had the Germsn Fritz X and US Azon glider bombs which were guided onto their targets by operators observing and steering them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V9bmZf2bxE

schtinggg

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I think you're all a bit off track. The idea behind drones is that they have the capability to loiter and conduct reconnaissance and attack designated targets or attack targets of opportunity.

I'd compare their roles to those that the Douglas Skyraider or North American OV-10 carried out in the vietnam war, just with remote control rather than a pilot in the craft.

The question being asked was concerning 'Origins'

kildarejohn

schtinggg wrote: »

The question being asked was concerning 'Origins'

According to Wikipedia "Radio control has been around since Nikola Tesla demonstrated a remote control boat in 1898", so this seems to be the origins.
Tesla's patent from 1898 can be found online and does not seem to envisage military use. This was certainly long before the IRA thought of remote control.

Victor

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Does drone technology has it's orgins in.. IRA remote controlled bombs & similar devises.

If your hypothesis were true, wouldn't we have seen drone aircraft used by them? I don't think the IRA introduced any new technologies, although they may have introduced new implementations of existing technologies.

While they may have done their own electrical work, their electronic work was all brought in from other sources, typically civilian technology. Many road side bombs were simply controlled by a command wire, not dissimilar to those used in mining, quarrying and demolition work. Urban bombs typically used timers, although some used basic radio command for detonation. However, this was no different to say, using a radio-controlled gate or garage door or the modern use of mobile phones.

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I think you're all a bit off track. The idea behind drones is that they have the capability to loiter and conduct reconnaissance and attack designated targets or attack targets of opportunity.

That is one implementation of drones. Some hand-held drones have no loiter time and are simple for use in seeing what is over the hill.

Important considerations are that drones don't put aircraft crew at risk and the weight saving can be used for extra fuel or payload or alternatively a smaller aircraft.

kidneyfan

Surely the doodlebug is the first drone?

kildarejohn

kidneyfan wrote: »

Surely the doodlebug is the first drone?

No, the doodlebug or V-1 (c. 1944) was not the first. A little Googling lead me to this - http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/rpav_britain.html - details of RAF development of remote controlled aircraft in 1924

tac foley

The V1 was the first cruise missile.

tac

Jawgap

The V1 couldn't be re-directed in flight.

There was 'semi-unmanned' combat aerial vehicle put together by US Ninth Air Force in Northwestern Europe.

To get around the problem of low clouds leading to missions being scrubbed, they wired an SCR584 radio set (in reality a very accurate close range radar used to direct AA fire) to a Microwave Early Warning radar set and integrated that with a Norden bombsight over a special map table.

The radar operator took command of P-47s when they were in the the air and using the combination of radars and the data fed into the bombsight he verbally guided the planes to a point where he (the radar operator) jettisoned the bombs - pilots hated it because they were being reduced to being 'truck drivers' but as a blind bombing technique it worked pretty well.

Victor

Jawgap wrote: »

The V1 couldn't be re-directed in flight.

The definition of a cruise missile is that it follows an approximately level flightpath (as opposed to a ballistic one) and has some guidance system. While primitive, the V-1 achieves this. While the majority of cruise missiles are air-breathing, this isn't a criteria and some aren't, e.g. Exocet uses rocket propulsion. The ability to redirect in flight (while no doubt classified in many cases) is absent in some cruise missiles and it is not a criteria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb#Guidance_system

Jawgap

Victor wrote: »

The definition of a cruise missile is that it follows an approximately level flightpath (as opposed to a ballistic one) and has some guidance system. While primitive, the V-1 achieves this. While the majority of cruise missiles are air-breathing, this isn't a criteria and some aren't, e.g. Exocet uses rocket propulsion. The ability to redirect in flight (while no doubt classified in many cases) is absent in some cruise missiles and it is not a criteria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb#Guidance_system

I'm not saying the V1 wasn't an early version of a cruise missile - I'm saying it wouldn't qualify to meet the definition of a drone which I took to mean 'remotely piloted vehicle.'

Plus it had no guidance system - it flew in the direction the launch ramp was pointed.

Capt'n Midnight

sparky42 wrote: »

Drones predate the Troubles, the US Navy had the DASH drones since the 50's for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrodyne_QH-50_DASH

or this from World War I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettering_Bug

Re the IRA and drone technology
British Army have been using wheelbarrows since 1972 ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelbarrow_%28robot%29
and the IRA were using proxy bombs in 1990

tac foley

Jawgap wrote: »

I'm not saying the V1 wasn't an early version of a cruise missile - I'm saying it wouldn't qualify to meet the definition of a drone which I took to mean 'remotely piloted vehicle.'

Plus it had no guidance system - it flew in the direction the launch ramp was pointed.

Not quite - it had a simple but effective electrical gyro compass. Basically, the whole of the V1 fuselage was turned into a magnet by the simple method of kinetic induction. It was noticed that each launch site had what was called simply 'the rectangular building'. A keen-eyed imagery analyst noticed that no matter where the launch site was located, the structure was aligned the same way - that is, with the compass points of the magnetic compass, and that the V1s were always pushed into one side, and exited the other on wooden trolleys.

Recovery of destroyed V1 fuselage components showed a regular pattern of what appeared to be hammer blows covering the entire surface of the fuselage, just like a beaten copper warming pan or similar. The V1, BTW, was sheathed in very thin steel, not aluminium.

It transpired that whilst inside the 'rectangular building' the entire device was raised in the air and had the almighty bejasus beaten out of it by a crew armed with hammers like panel beaters' planishing tools. You will know that you can make a compass by pointing a nail or needle due north and hitting it with a hammer - this is exactly what was being done to the V1.

Having made the entire missile into a giant compass needle, all that was needed was a magnetically sensitive device inside the fuselage that could detect any motion AWAY from the desired direction - a magnetically-driected gyro compass, in other words, that was cheap and effective - after all, they were aiming at London, not at any particular feature, and as long as it hit somewhere, it was an effective terror weapon.

Apologies for the long thread.

tac