Drones in the past
Not too terribly long ago I came across an article and an accompanying YouTube video by a man who had attached a small digital camera to a remote-controlled toy helicopter. The contraption worked well enough to yield video from high above the trees around his house.
It was a fun project, the man felt, and there might actually be a practical application for such a thing. But most who watched the video probably dismissed it as just a weird hobbyist science project.
What the man may or may not have known was that he may well have cobbled together one of the first “drones” as we know them today. I say “as we know them today” because unmanned aircraft that could shoot pictures have been used as far back as the Spanish American War in the late 1800s, back then mounted to a kite.
The actual term “drone” apparently dates back to the mid-1930s when unmanned remote-controlled vehicles made the buzzing sound of hive-controlled male bees, or “drones.”
Capturing images from the sky has been done for a while. Here are a couple of technicians loading a camera set which was used for the first U-2 Soviet overflight on July 4, 1956. (U.S. Air Force photo)
