Unmanned aerial vehicle

• 1. Introduction

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  Unmanned aerial vehicles, better known today as drones, have a history that begins not with silicon chips or smartphone apps, but with incendiary balloons. In July 1849, Austrian forces besieging Venice launched around 200 such balloons toward the city, some from a ship called the Vulcano. The wind shifted. Most missed. A few drifted back over Austrian lines. That moment of catastrophic misdirection was the first recorded offensive use of an unmanned aerial vehicle in warfare, and it planted a seed that would take more than a century to fully flower.

  By the early twenty-first century, drones had become essential tools for most of the world's militaries. They were also delivering packages, monitoring wildfires, photographing weddings, racing through obstacle courses, and examining landslides in terrain no human could safely reach. What began as a solution to missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for a human pilot had become something far stranger and more pervasive.

  How did a malfunctioning balloon attack lead to an industry worth over twelve billion dollars? Who built the first radio-controlled flying machine? And what happened when cheap consumer drones turned up on the front lines of a full-scale European war? Those are the questions this documentary will follow.

• 2. From Balloons to Biplanes

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  Leonardo Torres Quevedo, a Spanish engineer, stood before the Paris Academy of Science in 1903 and introduced something he called the Telekino: a radio-based control system designed to guide airships without putting a human life at risk. It was a reasonable ambition. Powered flight had only just become possible, and the idea that a machine could be steered remotely was still closer to science fiction than engineering practice.

  The push toward practical unmanned aircraft came largely from the military's need for target practice. The earliest attempt at a powered UAV was A. M. Low's "Aerial Target" in 1916. Low later confirmed that Geoffrey de Havilland's monoplane was the aircraft that flew under radio control on the 21st of March 1917. That spring demonstration led to Low being reassigned to develop fast motor launches for the Royal Navy in 1918, intended to attack enemy shipping and port installations.

  Nikola Tesla, meanwhile, had described a fleet of uncrewed aerial combat vehicles in 1915. The idea was spreading. Charles Kettering from Dayton, Ohio built the Kettering Bug, a pilotless torpedo designed to carry explosives to a predetermined target. The Dayton-Wright Airplane Company developed a similar device during World War One. These were primitive weapons, but they announced a direction.

  By 1935, two things happened that pointed toward the drone's modern form. Reginald Denny, a film star and model-airplane enthusiast, developed the first scaled remote piloted vehicle. That same year, the British deployed a fleet of over 400 de Havilland 82 Queen Bee aerial targets, the biplanes that gave the word "drone" its enduring name: robotic stand-ins, buzzing along for gunners to practice on.

• 3. Vietnam and the Intelligence Turn

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  In 1959, the U.S. Air Force began planning seriously for uncrewed aircraft after worrying about losing pilots over hostile territory. The planning sharpened dramatically after the Soviet Union shot down a U-2 spy plane in 1960. Within days, a classified program was launched under the code name "Red Wagon."

  The August 1964 clash in the Gulf of Tonkin pushed American UAVs into their first combat missions of the Vietnam War. The aircraft involved included the Ryan Model 147, the Ryan AQM-91 Firefly, and the Lockheed D-21. When the Chinese government released photographs of downed U.S. UAVs through Wide World Photos, Washington's official response was two words: "no comment."

  The scale of that hidden campaign was only confirmed by the U.S. military in 1973. The USAF 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing had flown around 3,435 UAV missions during the war, losing approximately 554 aircraft to all causes. Over 5,000 U.S. airmen had been killed in the conflict, with more than 1,000 missing or captured. USAF General George S. Brown, speaking in 1972, put the calculus plainly: "The only reason we need UAVs is that we don't want to needlessly expend the man in the cockpit." General John C. Meyer, Commander in Chief of Strategic Air Command, was equally direct: "we let the drone do the high-risk flying... the loss rate is high, but we are willing to risk more of them... they save lives!"

  Israel was pursuing a parallel track. During the War of Attrition from 1967 to 1970, Israeli intelligence tested the first tactical UAVs fitted with reconnaissance cameras, successfully returning photos from across the Suez Canal. These were aircraft that could launch and land on a short runway, a capability the heavier jet-based UAVs of the time could not match. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel used UAVs as decoys to drain opposing forces of expensive surface-to-air missiles. Several members of that development team then joined a small startup that eventually led to the first Israeli UAV, after the company was purchased by Tadiran.

• 4. Predators and Proliferation

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  During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Soviet-supplied missile batteries in Egypt and Syria had badly damaged Israeli fighter jets. Israel's response was the IAI Scout, the first UAV capable of transmitting surveillance imagery in real time. That capability paid off decisively at the start of the 1982 Lebanon War, when images and radar decoys from these UAVs helped neutralize Syrian air defenses entirely, with no Israeli pilots lost.

  Through the 1980s and 1990s, miniaturization pulled UAV technology out of the classified world and into wider military adoption. The U.S. funded the Counterterrorism Center within the CIA, which sought to use modernized drone technology against terrorist networks. The DoD contracted AAI Corporation and the Israeli firm Malat to develop the AAI Pioneer UAV jointly. Many of these saw service in the 1991 Gulf War.

  Initial generations were primarily surveillance platforms, but the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator changed that by carrying AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles. By one point in the 2000s, the United States Air Force operated 7,494 UAVs, nearly one in three of all its aircraft. The CIA operated its own fleet separately.

  By 2013, at least 50 countries were operating UAVs. China, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and Turkey were all designing and building their own. In the early 2010s, Israeli companies focused mainly on small surveillance systems and by 2014 exported 60.7% of UAVs on the global market. The United States accounted for 23.9% of exports that same year. Between 2010 and 2014, 439 drones changed hands internationally, compared to 322 in the previous five-year period, though only 11 of those 439 were armed.

• 5. The Consumer Revolution

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  In 2006, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration allowed unmanned aerial vehicles into civilian airspace for the first time, with specific regulations. That regulatory opening set the stage for what came next.

  In 2013, DJI released the first model of the Phantom drone at $629. It was entry-level and fully assembled, far more user-friendly than anything else on the market. The Phantom is credited as one of the most influential consumer drone products ever made, introducing the modern aerial photography drone form factor to hobbyists and professionals alike. By 2017, DJI alone held over 75% of the global consumer drone market share.

  By 2018, DJI's share of the civil market sat at 74%, with no other company holding more than 5%. As of May 2021, 873,576 UAVs had been registered with the U.S. FAA, with 42% classified as commercial and 58% as recreational. By 2025, Chinese drone companies collectively held 90% of the global UAV market share, with DJI accounting for 80% of the world market.

  The U.S. government grew wary. The Interior Department grounded its fleet of DJI drones in 2020. The Justice Department prohibited federal funds from being used to purchase DJI and other foreign-made UAVs. Despite those restrictions, DJI continued to dominate globally. Competing companies include American firm 3D Robotics, Chinese company Yuneec, Autel Robotics, and French company Parrot, but none has come close to matching DJI's scale.

  In 2020, a Kargu 2 drone hunted down and attacked a human target in Libya, according to a report from the UN Security Council's Panel of Experts on Libya published in March 2021. That incident may have been the first time an autonomous weapons system capable of lethal engagement attacked a human being without a human directing the strike.

• 6. War in Ukraine and the Cost Equation

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  Russia's invasion of Ukraine beginning in 2022 was widely described as the first full-scale war to feature large-scale use of commercial and consumer-grade UAVs in military settings. Quadcopters and first-person view drones, modified with sensors and explosives, appeared throughout the front lines on both sides. The drones were sourced from governments, hobbyists, and international donors, and were often flown by drone hobbyists recruited into the armed forces.

  Companies attempted to restrict military use of their consumer products. The effect was limited: donors and buyers shipped drones across borders through intermediaries and modified software to work around restrictions. Consumer drones had become an inescapable part of the war's infrastructure.

  Ukraine launched the Brave1 platform specifically to accelerate development of new systems. By 2025, both Ukraine and Russia had established dedicated UAV military commands called the Unmanned Systems Forces. Ukraine used drones innovatively beyond combat, delivering flexible medical stretchers and electric bicycles to evacuate wounded soldiers from the front. Both sides copied each other's designs, with Ukraine replicating Russia's Molniya fixed-wing drones and Russia deploying drone motherships equipped with Starlink.

  The 2026 Iran war made the cost asymmetry starkly visible. Iran deployed mass-produced drones including the Shahed-136, and the cost of neutralizing each one ran between an estimated $20,000 and $50,000 using conventional interceptor missiles, which themselves ranged from $3 million to $12 million apiece. FPV-based interceptor drones, by contrast, cost as little as around $1,000 each. The war generated a surge in demand for Ukrainian interceptor drones and anti-drone expertise across Gulf countries, Israel, Europe, and the United States. The global military uncrewed aerial systems market, which stood at $12.5 billion in 2024, is projected to reach an estimated $20 billion by 2034.

• 7. Beyond the Battlefield

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  NASA's Ingenuity helicopter operated as an autonomous UAV on Mars from 2021 to 2024, demonstrating that the technology had literally left Earth. The Dragonfly spacecraft, now in development and set to launch in 2027, aims to reach Saturn's moon Titan after an estimated seven-year journey, roaming its surface to examine diverse soil types across a wider area than any lander could manage.

  Back on Earth, solar-powered UAVs have achieved flight times measured in weeks. The QinetiQ Zephyr 7 remained aloft for 336 hours and 22 minutes from the 9th to the 23rd of July 2010, a run of 14 days. Airbus's Zephyr in 2023 reached 70,000 feet and flew for 64 days, with a target of 200 days. At those altitudes and durations, these aircraft function as what engineers call "pseudo-satellites," potentially performing duties comparable to low Earth orbit satellites at lower cost and with greater flexibility. Likely applications include weather monitoring, disaster recovery, Earth imaging, and communications.

  Agricultural drones now help distribute nutrients, pesticides, and seeds with precision across farmland. UAVs survey nesting seabirds, seals, and even wombat burrows. They fly into volcanic plumes to take gas measurements. They map landslides in terrain too dangerous for any field team. They detect proxy minerals for acid mine drainage using hyperspectral cameras.

  At Gatwick Airport in December 2018, unauthorized drone flights prompted the deployment of the British Army. In the United States, flying a drone near a wildfire carries a maximum fine of $25,000, a rule introduced after firefighting air operations in California were disrupted on multiple occasions in 2014 and 2015. The FAA rule published in 2021 requires all commercially operated UAVs, and all UAVs weighing 250 grams or more regardless of purpose, to broadcast their location and controller location continuously from takeoff to shutdown through Remote ID. That rule has since been challenged in a pending federal lawsuit, RaceDayQuads v. FAA.