At the end of the World War II, surveillance and reconnaissance tasks initialized by the numerous combatant countries in different ways. And drone was used for the internal surveillance. The first unmanned aircraft, which was utilized by US army to carry out the surveillance mission, is known as SD-1. It was the aircraft, which was deployed to train anti aircraft gunners. The SD-1 is also known as by its other name, which is MQM-57 Falconer.
Fig: SD-1 aka MQM-57
As we know necessity is the key of invention. During the surveillance tasks in 1960, an American aircraft was shot down by the Soviet Union through missile. And the country lost its pilot. This incident directed the attention of the defense personnel toward the drone to carry out surveillance. As per the army demand, Ryan Engineers promised to army to modify the pre-existed drone, which was as Firebee, into a long range unmanned machine. After the modification of Ryan Models, it was deployed by US army in numerous missions.
Fig: Ryan Firebee
Along with the US, the Soviet’s Engineer was putting their efforts to produce the drone with amazing capabilities. Consequently, they started surveillance task- with an upgraded drone, is known as Tupolev Tu-123 Yastreb aka DBR-1. Tupolev Tu-123 falls under the categories of long range and high altitude unmanned aircraft.
Fig: TU-123 aka DBR-1
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By Abul Kalam Khan