Unmanned aerial vehicle

A group photo of aerial demonstrators at the 2005 Naval Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Air Demo

An unmanned aerial vehicle, often called a drone, is an aircraft that is not operated by a pilot on board.

Drones may have an onboard computer to take care of adjustments to wind and changes in air pressure. Sometimes they are programmed to a particular target. Important decisions are usually supervised by people on the ground communicating by radio.

Large UAVs are mostly used by military forces, for example for reconnaissance. Some of them are programmed to be a target, to be shot at. A few carry weapons for unmanned combat. Drones also have civilian uses, such as firefighting or taking photographs.

Drones come in different sizes. Wingspans range from a few centimetres to about 60 metres (200 ft), the size of regular, manned aircraft.

Photographers mount cameras on drones for aerial photography. Google has built and tested drones, for delivery of merchandise.^[1] Some people use them in drone racing. Private drones are sometimes called a nuisance, even a danger.^[2] In many countries they are forbidden near cities and airports and other things.

There is an industry that makes and sells equipment for automatic tracking and detection of UAVs; There are commercial cameras that can track and detect some activity by UAVS.

Unmanned aerial vehicle, launching a missile
Control room for an unmanned aerial vehicle
Toy helicopter under radio control
Maasai seeing a drone for the first time (2018).

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Media

Elbit Systems Hermes-450 taking off
Northrop Grumman Bat carrying EO/IR and SAR sensors, laser range finders, laser designators, infra-red cameras
A DJI Phantom quadcopter UAV for commercial and recreational aerial photography
A General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, a hunter-killer surveillance UAV
Although most large military UAVs are fixed-wing aircraft, rotorcraft designs (i.e., RUAVs) such as this MQ-8B Fire Scout are also used.
Sukhoi Okhotnik-B.jpg

Prototype of Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik-B, a heavy UCAV
Winston Churchill and others waiting to watch the launch of a de Havilland Queen Bee target drone, 6 June 1941
A Ryan Firebee, one of a series of target drones/unpiloted aerial vehicles that first flew in 1951. Israeli Air Force Museum, Hatzerim airbase, Israel, 2006
Last preparations before the first tactical UAV mission across the Suez canal (1969). Standing: Major Shabtai Brill from the Israeli intelligence corps, the innovator of the tactical UAV.
The Israeli Tadiran Mastiff, which first flew in 1975, is seen by many as the first modern battlefield UAV, due to its data-link system, endurance-loitering, and live video-streaming.