Gallery: The Secret History of World War II-Era Drones
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In 1944, the US Navy used this PV-1 Ventura as a control aircraft for a remote-controlled drone in a WWII mission, which failed when the drone exploded without warning.
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Navy soldiers assess the damage done to a TBM 3, a remote-controlled drone, after it crashed after a takeoff attempt in the Solomon Islands, in July 1944.
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This Curtis-Sperry Flying Bomb was one of the first to be stabilized by gyroscopes. Launched by catapult, the Flying Bomb maintained altitude using a barometer.
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Franz Drexler, a German engineer, designed this rudimentary flight simulator in 1916. He was also an expert in gyroscopes, which were key to developing radio-controlled aircraft.
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The Radioplane Company’s production line in Van Nuys, California delivered almost 15,000 radio-controlled drones by war’s end in 1945.
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A view into a rear cockpit, with a joystick for controlling drones, and a small TV receiver (digitally added), which would’ve greatly helped the operator maneuver the drone.
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An early prototype of a Bat, a self-guided 1,000 pound glide bomb introduced into combat in 1945.
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The RP-4 was a target drone that was cheaply mass-produced in the late 1930s and launched by catapult.
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One A.L. Stevens, who filed a patent for this “Controllable Balloon” in 1900, eventually constructed a 22-foot long wirelessly directed airship, which he then demonstrated in 1909 inside his balloon hangar in Hoboken, New Jersey.
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The rear cockpit of a Voisin X was constructed in the 1920s and probably kitted out with a gyroscope and flight control buttons that were remotely triggered by radio.
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Operators used handheld controllers like this BC-1156A to pilot drones.
