Week 9: Balloon Aircraft Project and Unmanned Aerial Systems

After the spring break, this week in class we began to explore the history and development of the UAV. When people hear of unmanned aerial vehicles today they tend to think of drones and predator drones that are capable of taking down enemy targets.  UAVs were created primarily because since the Civil War and WWI  people saw the importance of having the intel of the geography/terrain and the enemy's movements.  As I have mentioned before, the United States saw the value of using balloon aircraft to gather intelligence in both the civil war and WWI. However, in WWII other countries especially France advanced from balloon aircraft to war planes.  This time period served more as an experimental phase for which air crafts worked well. For example they began to figure out what were the best uses for lighter planes and bigger heavier aircraft.  Even though light aircraft flew a quarter million missions in Europe during WWII  there were many accidents and malfunctions with the planes and missions.  One of the problems were that they were so massed produced in a short period of time which led to many problems.  For example, as a ship carried the planes over seas, some pilots and their crew would spend the whole time fixing all the planes manufacturing problems.

Even worse, in operation TORCH it was the Army's first use of light aviation in combat and it ended horrifically. It ended being shot down by friendlies due to the lack of communication.  However, in the coming wars (Cold War,Vietnam, Korean) the United States Air Force improved dramatically.  Along with helicopters and improved combat planes came the start of practical UAVs. At first they were used for observation purposes and target practice for the military.  Now, today there are a variety of uses for UAVs ranging from taking out enemies to gathering agricultural data. 

This week's reading has been somewhat of a review on everything we learned prior to spring break. It touched on the uses of balloon aircraft and the different techniques to acquiring observational data.  

Even though this reading was mostly about the use of air craft in the military, a lot of the same techniques and devices are used for commercial purposes. For example, some UAVs today have similar purposes as satellites and may be even more efficient in certain cases.  

I am looking forward to researching and providing more information about the current uses and controversies regarding drones.

Before I close this blog, I must give a shout out to the facilities people here at Furman University for retrieving the Go-Pro out of the tree for my group.  

https://furman.app.box.com/files/0/f/3275246380/1/f_27493411538