Drones

The unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV, have been successful in flying missions where the pilot would be put in unnecessary danger, saving America lives. "In 1915 Nikola Tesla described a fleet of unmanned aerial combat vehicles, long before they were a reality." (Wikipedia). The first U.S UAV’s were born in 1959 when United States Air Force officers were concerned with losing pilots over enemy territory, they began planning unmanned flight. The UAV will forever change they way that we conduct warfare in the sky. The United States didn’t really have a well-supported drone program until September 11, 2001. "The CIA’s UAV program was commissioned as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the increasing emphasis on operations for intelligence gathering in 2004" (Wikipedia). The UAV has since been used in many circumstances, for example In February 2013, it was reported that UAVs were used by at least 50 countries, several of which made their own: for example, Iran, Israel and China (Wikipedia). The UAV has taken the place of pilots in dangerous situations and placed those same pilots and put them behind of the controls of the drones. In 1991 the government proposed arming the drones and ended up with the"@General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, which utilized AGM-114 Hellfireair-to-ground missiles. An armed UAV is known as an unmanned combat air vehicle, UCAV" (Wikipedia). The Predator really changed the way that The United States conducts warfare, before the idea of arming them the drones could only conduct surveillance and report back to the people running it. Now the drone could attack the target. The Drone has been very innovative to the way that we that we gather intelligence and how we conduct warfare.media type="custom" key="24456134" align="right"  = = = = =Before the Drone =

Before the drone was produced in World War II "12,000 heavy bombers were shot down and 2/3 of their crew were killed"(World War II Facts). 6 bomber crewmen were killed for each one wounded flying bombing missions over Europe. In the Vietnam War the United States lost " 2,251 aircraft: 1,737 to hostile action, and 514 in accidents. 110 of the losses were helicopters and the rest fixed-wing"(Wikipedia). Finally around 1959 the United States got serious with developing unmanned aerial vehicles after Gary Powers and his "secret" @U-2 were shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960"(Wikipedia).

=Uses for Drones =

The drone has also revolutionized the way we do various aeronautical tasks. Every time a pilot goes up into the air there is a risk that the aircraft will crash and the pilot will not survive. The drone has helped this problem by taking the pilot out of the cockpit and there fore out of danger.

Forest Fire detection
Drones help the authorities that detect and prevent forest fires. They will launch a drone and fly it over a forest and tell the firemen where the fire is the strongest and how fast the fire is spreading. Sending a drone to do this job gets rid of the danger a plane ,with people on board, crashing into a forest that is burning.

Archaeology
Drones are currently used in Peru to help with archaeology, the drones help "To speed up survey work and protect sites from squatters, builders and miners. Small drones helped researchers produce three-dimensional models of Peruvian sites instead of the usual flat maps—and in days and weeks instead of months and years" (Wikipedia).

Oceanography
Currently a marine scientist at Rutgers University named Michael F. Crowley is putting 3 yellow drones into the ocean to try to track storms and learn about the ocean in general. The drones are "are winged and propellerless, like miniature Tomahawk missiles. Two are on loan from the Navy, and one, Rutgers’s own [...] As they slink into the Atlantic to begin a monthlong mission, they join a fleet of 12 others across the Eastern Seaboard, from Nova Scotia to Georgia" (Herkewitz). This is an innovation because a someone will be controlling a drone to learn about the ocean, instead of someone risking their life to get into a submarine to learn about the ocean.

Warfare
Drones have revolutionized the way that we conduct warfare, the United States have been using the Predator drone in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran to conduct armed attacks against terriost leaders of al-Qaeda. " The advantage of using an unmanned vehicle rather than a manned aircraft in such cases is to avoid a diplomatic embarrassment should the aircraft be shot down and the pilots captured, since the bombings take place in countries deemed friendly and without the official permission of those countries" (Wikipedia).

"Drone used to detect forest fire." FururistSpeaker.com. 19 Nov. 2013. Image. 21 Nov. 2013

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">"MQ-8B Fire Scout." //Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.// Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 21 Nov. 2013. Image. 21 Nov. 2013

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Various contributors. "World War 2 Facts." World War 2, 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Wikipedia contributors."Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War." //Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia//. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Wikipedia contributors. “Unmanned aerial vehicle.” //Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia//. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 26 Sep. 2013. Web. 26 Sep. 2013.