Drone? RPA? UAV? WTF?

"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit) 06/12/2015 at 14:27 • Filed to: None

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So !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! according to a University of Pennsylvania professor. What to call them then? What is a drone? Why are they called drones?

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Photo by Adrian Pingstone, public domain via Wikipedia

There are two related schools of thought as to how the word “drone” was applied to pilotless aircraft - and it has nothing to do with the sound an airplane makes. The more exact theory says it comes from the DeHavilland “Moth” series of airplanes, which were a series of two-person utility biplanes manufactured from the 1920s (King Edward flies one in The King’s Speech ) all the way to the 50s or so. Through 20-30 years of production the design underwent continuous evolution but maintained the same basic, simple and stable layout. Each new evolution was marked with a different name carrying the moth theme, so you had the Gypsy Moth, the Tiger Moth, and so on. During WWII the Royal Air Force sought a very cheap, easily manufactured design that could be stuffed with radio equipment and used as an unmanned aerial target for training anti-aircraft gunners. DeHavilland adapted the basic Tiger Moth design to use cheaper and simpler materials and submitted it to the RAF as the “Queen Bee” as per their insectoid naming scheme. The design was adopted as the RAF’s aerial gunnery target, and it’s not much of a leap to see how these planes were called “drones” as in the appellation given to the common worker bee.

Image credit Marcin Wichary via Wikipedia

The second theory is pretty much exactly the same, just more generalized - obviously the idea of remotely piloted aircraft buzzing around under the centralized control of a concentrated or singular entity reminded someone of worker bees and things worked logically off from there. It might’ve been what inspired someone at deHavilland to call their new aerial target the “Queen Bee” in the first place. The term “drone” managed to work its way into popular culture long before MQ-9 Reapers started popping off !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! terrorist targets in Pakistan; ask anybody in the 90s punk scene who wanted to rebel against the 9-5 workaholic drone willingly enslaving himself for Da Man. The idea of machines or even otherwise sentient people coming under the control of a single hive mind as “drones” had been a popular staple of science fiction for about as long as there had been remotely piloted aircraft in the first place, with the most famous example being Star Trek’s Borg race, a society of alien cyborgs (hence “Borg”) that had their minds linked to function as a single consciousness. The individual cyborgs were referred to as “drones” constantly throughout the various series, and was the title of a Star Trek: Voyager episode focusing on a Borg drone that had been created through accident onboard the titular starship and quickly adjusted to be a member of the crew.

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So there’s nothing that really singles out a “drone” as being a specific class of unmanned vehicle or even a vehicle at all. The original “drones” had a lot more resemblance to today’s R/C hobby aircraft, just full scale, and did little more than to fly in a straight line and be shot at. They certainly weren’t capable of launching radar-guided missiles at fortified military compounds while evading enemy radar- and missile-based air defenses or had high-fidelity sensors capable of reading license plates (they were guided just as you would guide an R/C aircraft, usually from the ground or from another aircraft far enough way to avoid being another gunnery target). For years, this is what being a military drone meant, including the Ryan Aeronautics Firebee series (oh hey look there’s that insect naming theme again) which were originally developed as high-speed jet-powered target drones for air defense missiles but were later adapted as some of the first spy and even attack drones, the grandfather’s of today’s RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-9 Reaper that grab all the War on Terror headlines. To claim that “If I was an airforce [sic] pilot controlling a remotely piloted vehicle (which is what they are) and you called it a drone, I would be insulted” is a bit of a supposition especially when you’re asking a university engineering professor (who apparently really wants to be an English professor) and not an actual Air Force drone operator.

Image by Staff Sgt. Brian Feurgeson courtesy US Air Force

As for the terms “Unmanned (or Unpiloted) Aerial Vehicle” or “Remotely Piloted Vehicle,” they’ve been used interchangeably (and nobody outside the University of Pennsylvania’s Uptight Semantics Department will berate you for it) but there are technical differences. Ideally a UAV would imply an aircraft that has no primary control input from a human operator - i.e., a human may literally tell the plane where to go (assign waypoints, point in a general direction etc.) but it’s the plane’s own electronic brain that actually gets the plane there. The computer is directly responsible for moving the control surfaces and determining the best way to carry out the orders. The best examples would be the most sophisticated drones out there - the RQ-4 Global Hawk, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and most sources agreeing that the RQ-170 Sentinel falls into this capability as well. However, the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper area also officially classified as UAVs even though they do require human input - someone actually moves a joystick around that controls the airplane going left, right, or wherever just as if that person were in the cockpit of that aircraft, except the cockpit of that aircraft happens to be physically detached from the aircraft by hundreds or even thousands of miles.

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Image by Nevitt Dilmen. Note that this image is from the Wikipedia entry for “UAV”

Technically such aircraft would be more accurately called “RPVs” since, well, they’re remotely piloted, and they are vehicles, but if it’s good enough for the Air Force it’s good enough for me. After all, while they may be Remotely Piloted Vehicles they’re also Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as they are indeed unmanned, in the air, and vehicles. So yeah, call them whatever you want, I’m sure the grammar police won’t care.

I’ll give Vijay Kumar one thing though, it’s probably better to call them “quadrotors” than “quadcopters.” The CH-47 Chinook is commonly referred to as a “twin-rotor” but nobody calls it a “twin-copter.”

Also, “Vijay” is a hilariously unfortunate first name.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 06/12/2015 at 14:32

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I’ll give Vijay Kumar one thing though, it’s probably better to call them “quadrotors” than “quadcopters.” The CH-47 Chinook is commonly referred to as a “twin-rotor” but nobody calls it a “twin-copter.”

Also, “Vijay” is a hilariously unfortunate first name.

Frankly, who gives a damb what you call it as long as it get the message across.

And second the motion.

Tohru > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 06/12/2015 at 14:50

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A quadrotor is not a drone. Whether it’s a $50 Hubsan from Radioshack or a DJI Phantom 2, it’s not a drone.

Viggen > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 06/12/2015 at 16:44

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The CH-47 Chinook is commonly referred to as a “twin-rotor” but nobody calls it a “twin-copter.”

We just call them pieces of shit.

jariten1781 > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 06/12/2015 at 16:51

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So, anecdote time. Long time member of the R/C hobby-craft community. Small radio controlled craft were called, well...just that: R/C Airplane, boat, jet, helicopter, etc. There were lots of sub categories...but ‘drone’ was just plain (heh heh) not part of the lexicon. In fact, the only time I ever heard it used was when some dude put up a cheap trainer and trimmed it to fly continuous circles with little input then would fly this little foam pusher to try and intercept and ram it. He called the target a ‘drone’, and no...I have no earthly clue why he purposefully tried to ram his own planes. ‘Drone’ definitely had a military connotation at that point.

When quadcopters started showing up at the fields regularly...10 years ago? (feels like they’re alternatively both new and have been around forever)...they had approximately 500 names. Quadrotor was certainly one of them, but it didn’t stick. The reason, I always assumed, is because ‘dual rotor’ was regularly used for standard R/C helicopters with coaxial rotors so there might be some implication that ‘quad rotor’ would mean they were all vertically stacked. Thus quadcopter eventually became the choice title.

Frankly, ‘drone’ as a term was driven by folks outside the hobby which is why there is so much consternation....but meh, language is mutable and fighting something with so much momentum is like trying to convince people to stop saying irregardless...very fruitless.

So drones they are, and...it doesn’t really matter to me because they’re banned where I live anyway haha.

S2Konstantin > jariten1781 06/15/2015 at 16:36

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What’s banned exactly? All R/C flying devices? Or only quad(copters/rotors)?

jariten1781 > S2Konstantin 06/15/2015 at 17:04

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All, and not just RC craft, ultralights and other non-standard flying machines are also banned.

S2Konstantin > jariten1781 06/15/2015 at 17:35

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Man, that sucks. I bet if a cop was having a bad day he could hassle a kid over a paper plane. Where is this totalitarian terror of a place?

jariten1781 > S2Konstantin 06/15/2015 at 17:48

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Capital of freedom...the 700 square mile region around Reagan National airport, basically the whole National Capital Region surrounding DC.

http://www.faa.gov/uas/no_drone_z…