-
Period: to
History of Drone Warfare
-
Austrian Balloons Launched
One of the first recorded was in 1849 when Austria launched an attack of 200 balloons armed with bombs on Venice. -
Civil War
Balloons armed with bombs were used by both sides in the american civil war. -
Spanish-american war
During the war the USA military launched kites fitted with cameras to take photographs. -
WW1 Drones
In World War I, aerial surveillance was used a lot. Analysts used stereoscopes to hunt for visual clues about enemy movements. The Royal Flying Corps took over 19,000 aerial photographs and collected 430,000 prints during the five months of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. -
Flying Bomb
In 1917, Elmer Sperry, together with Peter Hewitt, began construction of the radio-controlled “flying bomb.” The Drone was able to fly 50 miles carrying a 300-pound bomb after being launched by catapult -
WW2
In the mid-1940s the GB-1 Glide Bomb was developed to avoid German air defenses. It was a glider with a standard 1,000 or 2,000-pound bomb. -
Surveilance Cuba
In May of 1964, the U.S. first began to send drones to do spy missions over Cuba. -
Predator
In 1995 Predators were shown in a demonstration. Impressed by the drone’s capabilities, the U.S. Air Force soon established its very first UAV squadron, called Creech. Creech remains the current hub of American drone operations in Afghanistan. -
First attack after 9/11
The first ever CIA drone attack was a disaster. It was thought to be an attack on Bin Laden but was not so and civilians were killed -
Pakistan
Since 2004 the CIA has been doing aerial surveillance and assasinations across Pakistan to remove high profile targets and threats
