document_title: Finn the Human

question_text: adventure time how does finn lose his arm

text: Finn the Human

text: Biography[edit]

text: Finn debuted at age 12 but has aged over the course of the show and is now[when?] 16. Finn sets off on magical random quests around the Land of Ooo. He would gladly fight or beat up anything evil, but would not harm anything good or "neutral" as shown in "The Enchiridion!" when he refused to squash an innocent ant. Having a strong moral code, Finn swore that he would help anyone in need and often performs heroic feats to save the day; however,[2] starting after season 3, Finn's enthusiastic nature becomes more toned down as the series progresses, suggesting he is both maturing and developing as a character as he ages. As shown in "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain", Finn appears to have been abandoned in the woods during infancy. He reveals that he had made "boom boom"—a euphemism for defecation—on a large leaf, fallen on it, and lay there crying until Joshua and Margaret, Jake's parents, rescued him from the wilderness and took him in to raise him alongside Jake, who became like a brother to him. As such, Jake is also Finn's adoptive brother. In "Henchman", when Finn is asked about his parents, he says Jake told him that he came from a cabbage, in jest. In the episode "Susan Strong", Finn states that he knows nothing of his human parents or any other humans. He is one of the few characters in the series (along with Flame Princess) who ages regularly. According to the episode "The Vault", Finn has had a number of past lives. In "Red Starved" it is revealed that Finn is color blind, believing that an emerald was a ruby.

text: In the Season 6 opener "Escape From the Citadel", Finn has lost half of his right arm, up to his elbow, from which a flower protruded. He later regains his arm, now as a prosthetic, in the episode "Breezy", only to lose it once more in the seventh series finale "Reboot" when his grass arm transforms itself into a humanoid, sentient being. In the Season 8 premiere episode "Two Swords", Finn gets fitted with a new robotic arm by Princess Bubblegum, to replace the missing arm.

text: Age[edit]

text: Finn is currently 16 as confirmed in the season 6 finale "The Comet" and the early season 8 episode "Wheels". At the beginning of the series, Finn was a 12-year-old boy who is supposedly the only known human in the Land of Ooo. During the episode "Mystery Train", Finn turned 13; it has been stated that the episode first airing date (March 14) is Finn's birthday.[3] After season 3 ended, Pendleton Ward stated in an interview that Finn was 14. Finn was 15 years old in the second half of Season 5, according to Adam Muto.[4] In the Season 6 finale, "The Comet", Finn reveals that he has reached 16 years of age. This means that unlike in many other cartoons where characters stay the same age or age through time skips, in Adventure Time time passes regularly.

text: Status as the last human[edit]

text: Until the episode "Betty", Finn was the only known human in the Land of Ooo. A common theory explaining the etymology of his name includes the Italian word "fin", meaning "end". Another possibility is that his name is Irish, Finn being a name of a mythological Irish hero, whose name is derived from "fionn", the Irish language word for blonde; Finn the Human is blonde as well. The cause for him being the last human is alluded to by Finn and many other characters as "The Great Mushroom War", which was a nuclear war that wiped out the majority of humanity. Up until the character "Susan Strong" is introduced, Finn believes that he has never met another human. When Finn encounters Susan Strong, the other members of Susan's tribe of "Hyoomen" are revealed to be mutants, and Susan's identity as a human or mutant was left ambiguous. In the episode "Beautopia", it was hinted upon that Susan may also be human, but was not confirmed at the time. However, in the Season 6 episode, "Dark Purple", Susan's hat was taken off, revealing that she is indeed human, but with a cybernetic implant on the left side of her head, which meant she was a cyborg. The businessmen that Finn meets in the "Business Time" episode are also human, though they have been mutated over time. In the episode "Her Parents", Lady Rainicorn's parents (Bob and Ethel) attempt to eat Finn because they thought they would never get the chance to eat one, as they believed humans were extinct. Finn's female counterpart Fionna the Human is a human living in the Land of Aaa, though it has no official name; however, she exists only in a parallel universe conceived by the Ice King, when he wrote a fanfiction based upon his life and experiences with Finn and Jake. There are many other characters in the show that appear to be human but have been confirmed to be humanoids or mutants. In the episode Be More, the character Moseph "Moe" Mastro Giovanni, who is the creator of BMO, appears to be a human, but is revealed that he has replaced most of his body parts (except the skin) with artificial ones, which makes him virtually a cyborg. In the episode "Betty," Betty Grof (known as Simon Petrikov's former fiancee) was brought from the past into Ooo, and later in "Escape From the Citadel" Finn's father, Martin, is introduced, making Finn no longer the last human.

text: However, during the season 6 finale event, two episodes and their events bring a return to Finn's status as the last human on Ooo. In "You Forgot Your Floaties", Betty Grof becomes Magic Man's apprentice and in return for helping Magic Man, he promised her a cure for her fiance. Things go awry and at the end of the episode, Betty takes Magic Man's hat, thus becoming a wizard and losing her status as a human. Additionally, in the finale episode, "The Comet", after Finn learns of his past and declines an offer to become a higher being, his father, Martin, takes the offer and ascends to another level of being, likely bringing an end to his human form.

text: In the episode, "Preboot", it was revealed there are other humans outside of Ooo, then at the end of "Reboot", Finn destroyed Susan's cybernetic implant, making her fully human in the process.

text: During the miniseries "Islands", Finn being the last human was completely dispelled. It was revealed that around 1,000 years after the Great Mushroom War a group of surviving humans left Ooo and moved to a chain of islands. After many generations there are still humans there. Finn's mom Minerva is on Founder's Island, one of the islands, and was a Helper (doctor). She uploaded her mind to a network of robots after the island was ravaged by an illness. In addition to meeting his biological mother, Finn met many other humans. Although Finn hopes they may venture out of the islands and back to Ooo one day, people are changing their minds about leaving.

text: Physical appearance[edit]

text: Finn is a 5-foot tall teenage human. He has several missing teeth, yellow hair, of which the length differs due to occasional haircuts. His eyes and eyebrows appear black from a distance, but according to lead character designer Andy Ristaino, they are blue. He wears a white bear hat, short blue pants, and a light blue T-shirt. He also has a green backpack, black shoes, and socks rolled down to his ankles. Finn has peach color skin. Finn is a teenage boy who is average height and weight. His arms and legs are very thin, but he has a wide torso. He is missing several teeth because they often face monsters that hit him in the face, also he often bites rocks and other hard objects. These teeth are sometimes round or pointed and constantly changing place, depending on the occasion. In the episode "The Enchiridion!" it can be seen for a moment that his left eye is green while his right eye is blue, as if he has heterochromia. However, Andy Ristaino confirmed that this was a "special occasion" and that in fact both eyes are light blue, which is not visible to the naked eye. He also points out in that episode that Finn had a small round nose but this is considered more of an error or humorous scene.

text: In "Escape from the Citadel", Finn had lost right arm after it was pulled off after an attempt to reach his father, which was then coated by the blood of a Citadel Guardian that made it grow into a small flower. He later got his arm back in the episode, "Breezy," where the flower stub matured into a tree and broke away like a cocoon, revealing a new limb. In the seventh season finale, "Reboot", Finn lost it once more when his grass arm tries to attack a savage Susan and transforms into a sentient grass being called Fern the Human. Starting with the eighth season premiere, "Two Swords", Finn has been fitted with a new robotic arm by Princess Bubblegum, who fastened it in his amputated part since his old arm was no longer part of his body.

text: According to Jake, Finn is about 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall. This is revealed in the episode "Dungeon Train", in the second half of the fifth season. In the 23rd episode of the sixth season, The Pajama War, it is seen that he has grown considerably, being almost as tall as Princess Bubblegum, who, biologically, is many years older than Finn.

text: Costuming[edit]

text: Finn typically wears a munsell blue ("color #0093AF") T-shirt, short blue pants, a two-toned lime green circular backpack, rolled-down white socks, and a pair of black shoes. Finn's most prominent attire is a white hat with two "ears" sticking out on top that covers his entire head minus his face. The hat is inspired by a character called Bueno, a bear from a Pendleton Ward comics. Finn can occasionally be seen in variations of his standard outfit. In "Ocean of Fear," his footwear appears to be black booties with white cuffs. In "It Came from the Nightosphere", Finn has a small pocket sewn onto his shirt that he carries Jake in. This appears again in "Davey" where he uses it to hide Jake while Finn steals the keys from the guards as he breaks the former out of jail. During "In Your Footsteps," the Bear wears Finn's clothes, which suggests that Finn has multiple sets of the same outfit, including his hat. However, in "Little Dude," when Finn's hat comes to life and is set free, Jake tells Finn, "Okay, let's go skin an evil bear," which may imply that Finn only had one hat.

text: Aside from his normal outfit, Finn can be seen wearing a cream-yellow sweater in colder areas such as the Ice Kingdom but currently wears his pink sweater made by Princess Bubblegum. In "Holly Jolly Secrets Part II," he wears a dark blue sweater with Christmas decorations on it and a green scarf. Finn also wears white briefs that make their first appearance in "City of Thieves". In "Who Would Win," he was shown to wear a different pair with red elastic. Finn sleeps in red footie pajamas that appear in many episodes, but in the animated short, he sleeps in a red sleeping bag in his regular clothes. In the series, the sleeping bag is beige.


document_title: A Goofy Movie

question_text: who did powerline's voice in a goofy movie

question_tokens: who did powerline 's voice in a goofy movie

root

text: A Goofy Movie

text: Plot[edit]

text: Goofy is the single father of a 14-year-old teenage boy named Max Goof in the town of Spoonerville, Ohio, although the two have a tense relationship. On the last day of school before summer vacation, Max and his best friends P.J. and Robert "Bobby" Zimmeruski hijack the auditorium stage in the middle of Principal Mazur's speech, creating a small concert where Max performs, while costumed as the pop singer Powerline. The performance succeeds in making Max a school celebrity and impressing his love interest, Roxanne, but he, P.J., and Bobby are sent to Mazur's office. While waiting outside of the office, Roxanne speaks with Max and agrees to go with him to a party where Powerline's concert will be aired live. However, Mazur exaggerates these events to Goofy and forewarns him that Max's actions may result in him facing capital punishment.

tag: p

text: Goofy decides to take Max on a fishing trip to Lake Destiny, Idaho, following a map route he and his father took years ago, and the two go into his station wagon. However, he is oblivious to what Max is planning to do with Roxanne. Max stops by Roxanne's house to call off their date, but when Roxanne says she will just have to go with someone else, Max panics and instead fabricates a story about his father knowing Powerline; he tells her he will be on stage at the concert.

text: Despite his son's objections, Goofy plans his own trip, with initially disastrous results. Max hurts his father's feelings after his father humiliates him at an opossum-based theme park. While camping, Pete and P.J. join them. Following Pete's advice to keep Max under control, Goofy takes his son fishing and performs the Perfect Cast fishing technique, luring Bigfoot to their camp. Pete and P.J. flee, leaving Goofy and Max to spend the night with Bigfoot. At night, while Goofy is still asleep, Max alters the map route to Los Angeles, where the concert is taking place.

text: The next morning, Goofy decides to make Max the navigator of the trip. The two go to several locations that satisfy both of them. They stop by a motel where they meet Pete and P.J. again. When Pete overhears a conversation between Max and P.J., he tells Goofy that Max has tricked him in traveling to Los Angeles. The next day, Goofy and Max come to a junction: one leading to Idaho, the other to California. Max chooses the route to California, making Goofy stop the car at the Grand Canyon and storm off in anger. With the brake loose, the car drives off on its own; Goofy and Max chase after it and end up in the canyon. Goofy reveals that no matter how old Max gets, he will always be his son and the two reconcile with each other. After learning that Max had promised Roxanne that he would be at the concert, Goofy decides to take him to Los Angeles. The two nearly plummet down a waterfall to their deaths, but Max fortunately saves Goofy, using the Perfect Cast technique.

text: Goofy and Max get to Los Angeles, and while attempting to sneak backstage, they end up onstage and dance with Powerline, watched by Pete, P.J. and Roxanne on separate televisions. Goofy and Max later return to Roxanne's house in their damaged car. Max tells the truth to Roxanne, though she accepts it and admits she always had feelings for him, ever since he first said, "Ahyuck!"; thus, a relationship starts between them. Goofy's car suddenly explodes due to the damage it has sustained, ejecting Goofy in the process, but he safely falls through the porch roof of Roxanne's house, and Max proceeds to introduce him to Roxanne.

text: Voice cast[edit]

text:
Jason Marsden as Maximillan "Max" Goof, an insecure teenage boy. He is often embarrassed by his dad's antics, and is worried that he is turning into him. His relationship with his father is somewhat tense, but he loves him despite their differences. He is self-aware, and wants to be popular among his peers at high school. Aaron Lohr provides Max's singing voice.
Bill Farmer as Goofy Goof, Max's father who works as a photographer at a toy store. He cares deeply about his son, and wants to be a part of his life despite the latter's disinterest. He is clumsy but well-intended.
Kellie Martin as Roxanne, Max's high school love interest.
Jim Cummings as Peter Pete, Goofy's next-door neighbor.
Rob Paulsen as P.J. Pete, Pete's son and Max's best friend.
Pauly Shore (uncredited) as Robert "Bobby" Zimmeruski, Max and P.J.'s best friend at school.
Jenna von Oÿ as Stacey, Roxanne's best friend.
Julie Brown as Lisa
Joey Lawrence as Chad
Tevin Campbell as the singing voice of Powerline, a famous rock star who Max looks up to.
Wallace Shawn as Principal Arthur Mazur
Frank Welker as Bigfoot
Kevin Lima as Lester
Florence Stanley as Waitress
Jo Anne Worley as Miss.Maple
Wayne Allwine as Mickey Mouse
Pat Buttram as Possum Park Emcee
Herschel Sparber as Security guard
Pat Carroll as Restaurant waiter
Corey Burton as Wendell
Brittney Alyse Smith as Photo Studio Girl

tag: ul

text: Production[edit]

text: A Goofy Movie was the directorial debut for Disney crew member Kevin Lima, who went on to direct the Disney films Tarzan (1999), 102 Dalmatians (2000) and Enchanted (2007).[4] In 1995, Lima said that "Instead of just keeping Goofy one-dimensional as he's been in the past, we wanted to give an emotional side that would add to the emotional arc of the story. We wanted the audience to see his feelings instead of just his antics."[5]

text: Although based upon a Disney TV series, A Goofy Movie was jointly produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, Walt Disney Television Animation, Disney MovieToons, Walt Disney Animation France S.A. and Walt Disney Animation Australia. Pre-production was done at the main WDFA studio in Burbank, California, starting as early as mid-1993. The animation work was done at Walt Disney Animation France in Paris, France supervised by Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, with additional scenes animated at Disney's studio in Sydney, Australia under the direction of Steve Moore, and clean-up work done at the main Burbank studio.[6][7] Additional clean-up/animation was done by Phoenix Animation Studios in Canada, and digital ink and paint by the Pixibox studio in France.[8]

text: Music[edit]

text: The score for A Goofy Movie was provided by Carter Burwell and Don Davis.[9] Burwell was the primary composer; after Burwell had recorded his score with Shirley Walker orchestrating and conducting, Davis was hired to rework his score rather than write a completely new one. Burwell later wrote "My score had relied somewhat on unusual instrumentation - banjo, percussion and choir for example - and Disney wanted the sweeping scale and familiar affect of symphonic score." .[10] Davis is credited with "additional music" on the movie and the soundtrack album.

text: The songs "I 2 I" and "Stand Out" were performed by R&B singer Tevin Campbell. The soundtrack album for A Goofy Movie was released by Walt Disney Records on March 18, 1995.[11] Mitchell Musso covered the song "Stand Out" for the DisneyMania 7 album, which was released on March 9, 2010.[12]

text:
A Goofy Movie Original Soundtrack

No.
Title
Length

1.
"I 2 I" (Tevin Campbell)
4:37

2.
"After Today" (Aaron Lohr and Chorus)
2:21

3.
"Stand Out" (Tevin Campbell)
3:00

4.
"On the Open Road" (Bill Farmer, Aaron Lohr, and Chorus)
3:01

5.
"Lester's Possum Park" (Kevin Quinn and Chorus)
1:25

6.
"Nobody Else But You" (Bill Farmer and Aaron Lohr)
2:35

7.
"Opening Fanfare / Max's Dream / Transformation"
1:25

8.
"Deep Sludge"
2:35

9.
"Bigfoot"
1:50

10.
"Hi Dad Soup"
2:04

11.
"Runaway Car"
2:14

12.
"Junction"
1:32

13.
"The Waterfall! / The Truth"
2:17

tag: table

text: Release[edit]

text: A Goofy Movie was originally scheduled for a November 1994 theatrical release,[13] but production setbacks resulted in a push-back to 1995, while The Lion King was reissued to fill in for the film's absence.[14] The film's premiere took place on April 5, 1995, at the AMC Pleasure Island at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, and was attended by director Kevin Lima and voice stars Bill Farmer and Jenna von Oy. On the 7th, it was released nationwide.[15] The film played a limited engagement at the El Capitan Theatre from August 25 through September 4, 2017.[16]

text: Home media[edit]

text: The film was first released on VHS by Walt Disney Home Video on September 6, 1995, and included a music video for the Parachute Express song Doctor Looney's Remedy on their video, Come Sing with Us. In the UK, it was released in theaters succeeding the Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain on October 18, 1996, and on VHS in 1997. It was reissued on June 20, 2000, along with a DVD version as part of the short-lived Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection. This edition includes the Goof Troop episode, "Calling All Goofs" and a "Disney-fied" edit of Mambo No. 5. To date, this film and Doug's 1st Movie are the only two Disney animated films produced in widescreen that have pan and scan-only Region 1 DVD releases (not counting separate widescreen and pan and scan DVD releases of the two Disney/Pixar films The Incredibles and Cars). However, the film's PAL and NTSC (Japan) counterpart does have a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD, and the film is available in a letterbox presentation on LaserDisc and also in standard-definition widescreen on digital video retailers.

text: Reception[edit]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: A Goofy Movie holds a score of 53% at Rotten Tomatoes, based on reviews from 15 critics.[17]

text: Variety's Todd McCarthy criticized the film's score, calling the six featured songs "unmemorable". He also felt that the personality of Goofy's character, while agreeable enough in support, proved a bit over the top for a headliner, and that "by any reasonable reckoning, he's distinctly overbearing and selfish, and responds with a bland dismissal to any opinion offered up by his son". McCarthy praised the film's technical aspects, calling them "crisp and clean".[6] Louis Black of The Austin Chronicle summed up his review by saying the film was "bland, a barely television-length cartoon stretched out to fill a feature, and not much fun".[5]

text: Siskel and Ebert both approved of the movie, praising the color scheme and the "sweet" father-son plot, and gave it three stars.[18] Writing for Common Sense Media, Nell Minow gave the film 4 stars, saying that "even tweens will enjoy this road trip with Goofy."[19]

text: Box office[edit]

text: A Goofy Movie was considered a relative success for Disney, opening in 2,159 theaters at #2 on its opening weekend with $6,129,557 - held from the #1 spot only because of the Will Smith blockbuster Bad Boys that opened the same weekend, with $15,523,358 in box office returns.[20] It ultimately ended its run at the US box office grossing $35,348,597 - coming in as the 51st highest-grossing domestic film in 1995.[3]

text: Accolades[edit]

text: The film was nominated for "Best Animated Feature" in the production categories and "Best Production Design", "Best Storyboarding", "Best Music", and "Best Animation" in the individual categories at the 23rd Annie Awards.[21]

text: Sequel[edit]

text: In 2000, a direct-to-video sequel to A Goofy Movie, titled An Extremely Goofy Movie, was released on DVD and VHS. The film involves Max's freshman year in college. Characters that returned for the sequel were Goofy, Max, P.J., Pete and Bobby, but Roxanne, Max's love interest, is absent from the sequel and is not referenced. Roxanne later appeared in the television series House of Mouse in the episode titled "Max's Embarrassing Date", where she was voiced by Grey DeLisle instead of Kellie Martin.

text: Reunion[edit]

text: On August 14, 2015, a 20th anniversary reunion for the film occurred at the D23 Expo at Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California.[22] Those in attendance included Bill Farmer, Jason Marsden, Jim Cummings, Rob Paulsen, Jenna von Oÿ and producer Don Hahn. Wallace Shawn, Pauly Shore and director Kevin Lima also sent video messages.[22] The panel also included musical performances from Farmer, Marsden and Tevin Campbell.[22][23]


document_title: History of unmanned aerial vehicles

question_text: when did the us first start using drones

question_tokens: when did the us first start using drones

text: History of unmanned aerial vehicles

text: Early development[edit]

text: The Austrian balloons[edit]

text: The earliest recorded use of an unmanned aerial vehicle for warfighting occurred on August 22, 1849, when the Austrians attacked the Italian city of Venice with unmanned balloons loaded with explosives known as Austrian balloons. At least some of the balloons were launched from the Austrian ship Vulcano. Although some of the balloons worked and successfully managed to bomb The Republic, others were caught in a change of wind and blown back over Austrian lines. This occurred on the first launch as the wind was not in Austria's favor on July 12, 1849[1] The Austrians had been developing this system for 66 years, since the idea was hatched in 1783. The Presse, of Vienna, Austria, stated: "Venice is to be bombarded by balloons, as the lagunes prevent the approaching of artillery. Five balloons, each measuring 5.7 meters in diameter, are in construction at Treviso. In a favorable wind the balloons will be launched and directed as near to Venice as possible, and on their being brought to vertical positions over the town, they will be fired by electro magnetism by means of a long isolated copper wire with a large galvanic battery placed on a building. The bomb falls perpendicularly, and explodes on reaching the ground."[2] Balloons do not generally meet today's definition of a UAV. Once winged aircraft had been invented, the effort to fly them unmanned for military purposes was not far behind.

text: World War I[edit]

text: The first pilotless aircraft were built during and shortly after World War I. Leading the way, using A. M. Low's radio control techniques, was the Ruston Proctor Aerial Target of 1916.[3] If developed further it was to have been used against Zeppelins. Soon after, on September 12, the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, otherwise known as the "flying bomb" made its first flight, demonstrating the concept of an unmanned aircraft. They were intended for use as "aerial torpedoes" an early version of today's cruise missiles. Control was achieved using gyroscopes developed by Elmer Sperry of the Sperry Gyroscope Company.[4]

text: Later, in November 1917, the Automatic Airplane was flown for representatives of the US Army. This led the army to commission a project to build an "aerial torpedo", resulting in the Kettering Bug which first flew in 1918. While the Bug's revolutionary technology was successful, it was not in time to fight in the war, which ended before it could be fully developed and deployed.[5]

text: Interwar period[edit]

text: After World War I, three Standard E-1s were converted to drones.[6] The Larynx was an early cruise missile in the form of a small monoplane aircraft that could be launched from a warship and flown under autopilot; it was tested between 1927 and 1929 by the Royal Navy. The early successes of pilotless aircraft led to the development of radio controlled pilotless target aircraft in Britain and the US in the 1930s. In 1931, the British developed the Fairey Queen radio-controlled target from the Fairey IIIF floatplane, building a small batch of three, and in 1935 followed up this experiment by producing larger numbers of another RC target, the "DH.82B Queen Bee", derived from the De Havilland Tiger Moth biplane trainer. The name of "Queen Bee" is said to have led to the use of the term "drone" for pilotless aircraft, particularly when they are radio-controlled. During this period, the U.S. Navy, continuing work that reached back to 1917, was also experimenting with radio-controlled aircraft. In 1936, the head of this research group used the term "drone" to describe radio-controlled aerial targets.[7]

text: World War II[edit]

text: Reginald Denny and the Radioplane[edit]

text: The first large-scale production, purpose-built drone was the product of Reginald Denny. He served with the British Royal Flying Corps during World War I, and after the war, in 1919, emigrated to the United States to seek his fortunes in Hollywood as an actor. Denny had made a name for himself as an actor, and between acting jobs, he pursued his interest in radio control model aircraft in the 1930s. He and his business partners formed "Reginald Denny Industries" and opened a model plane shop in 1934 on Hollywood Boulevard known as "Reginald Denny Hobby Shops".[8]

text: The shop evolved into the "Radioplane Company". Denny believed that low-cost RC aircraft would be very useful for training anti-aircraft gunners, and in 1935 he demonstrated a prototype target drone, the RP-1, to the US Army. Denny then bought a design from Walter Righter in 1938 and began marketing it to hobbyists as the "Dennymite", and demonstrated it to the Army as the RP-2, and after modifications as the RP-3 and RP-4 in 1939. In 1940, Denny and his partners won an Army contract for their radio controlled RP-4, which became the Radioplane OQ-2. They manufactured nearly fifteen thousand drones for the army during World War II.

text: It was at the Van Nuys Radioplane factory that in 1944 that Army photographer David Conover saw a young lady named Norma Jeane, and thought she had potential as a model. This "discovery" led to fame for Jeane, who soon changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

text: The true inventor of a radio-controlled aircraft that could fly out of sight was Edward M. Sorensen as evidenced by his US patents. His invention was the first to be able to know from a ground terminal, what the airplane was doing, such as climbing, altitude, banking, direction, rpm and other instrumentation. Without these patents the early radio-controlled aircraft could only operate within visual sight of the ground pilot.[9]

text: Aerial torpedoes[edit]

text: The US Navy began experimenting with radio-controlled aircraft during the 1930s as well, resulting in the Curtiss N2C-2 drone in 1937. The N2C-2 was remotely controlled from another aircraft, called a TG-2. N2C-2 anti-aircraft target drones were in service by 1938.[10]

text: The US Army Air Forces (USAAF) adopted the N2C-2 concept in 1939.[10] Obsolescent aircraft were put into service as "A-series" anti-aircraft target drones. Since the "A" code would be also used for "Attack" aircraft, later "full-sized" targets would be given the "PQ" designation. USAAF acquired hundreds of Culver "PQ-8" target drones, which were radio-controlled versions of the tidy little Culver Cadet two-seat light civil aircraft, and thousands of the improved Culver PQ-14 Cadet derivative of the PQ-8. The US also used RC aircraft, including modified B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator heavy bombers in Operation Aphrodite in combat on a small scale during World War II as very large aerial torpedoes, though with no great success and the loss of aircrew including Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.

text: The "TDN-1" was an unmanned drone that was developed for use in 1940. The TDN was capable of delivering a 1,000-pound bomb but never saw operational duty.

text: The Naval Aircraft Factory assault drone "Project Fox" installed an RCA television camera in the drone and a television screen in the TG-2 control aircraft in 1941.[10] In April 1942 the assault drone successfully delivered a torpedo attack on a destroyer at a range of 20 miles from the TG-2 control aircraft.[10] Another assault drone was successfully crashed into a target moving at eight knots.[10] The Navy Bureau of Aeronautics then proposed a television-assisted remote control assault drone program of 162 control planes and 1,000 assault drones.[10] Disagreements arose within the Navy concerning the relative advantages of the proposed program for full scale combat implementation versus a small scale combat test with minimum aircraft resource expenditure which might reveal the concept to the enemy and allow development of countermeasures prior to full production.[10] Assault drones remained an unproven concept in the minds of military planners through major allied advances of 1944.[10] Utilization was limited to a 4-drone attack on a beached Japanese merchant ship in the Russell Islands at the end of July followed by expenditure of 46 drones in the northern Solomon Islands.[10] Two hits and two near-misses were scored on the stationary ship.[10] Several of the later drones failed to reach their targets, but most were effective.[10]

text: Pulsejets[edit]

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: The V-1 flying bomb was the first cruise missile ever built.[11] It was built in the Peenemünde Army Research Center and first tested in 1942. The V-1 was intended to target London and was massively fired, achieving more than one hundred launches a day. The V-1 was launched from a rail system to achieve the speed needed to operate its pulsejet engine and would achieve a 250 kilometers radius, at one point flying at 640 km/h.

text: McDonnell built a pulsejet-powered target, the TD2D-1 Katydid, later the KDD-1 and then KDH-1. It was an air-launched cigar-shaped machine with a straight mid-mounted wing, and a vee tail straddling the pulsejet engine. The Katydid was developed in mid-war and a small number were put into service with the US Navy.

text: After the war, the Navy obtained small numbers of another pulsejet-powered target, the Curtiss KD2C Skeet series. It was another cigar-shaped machine, with the pulsejet in the fuselage and intake in the nose. It featured straight, low-mounted wings with tip tanks, and a triple-fin tail.

text: Cold War[edit]

text: Target drone evolution[edit]

text: In the post-World War II period, Radioplane followed up the success of the OQ-2 target drone with another very successful series of piston-powered target drones, what would become known as the Basic Training Target (BTT) family (the BTT designation wasn't created until the 1980s, but is used here as a convenient way to resolve the tangle of designations), including the OQ-19/KD2R Quail and the MQM-33/MQM-36 Shelduck. The BTTs remained in service for the rest of the 20th century. The first target drone converted to the battlefield unmanned aerial photo reconnaissance mission was a version of the MQM-33 conversion for the US Army in the mid-1950s designated the RP-71,[12] later re-designated the MQM-57 Falconer.

text: The US military acquired a number of other drones similar in many ways to the Radioplane drones. The Globe company built a series of targets, beginning with the piston-powered KDG Snipe of 1946, which evolved through the KD2G and KD5G pulsejet-powered targets and the KD3G and KD4G piston-powered targets, to the KD6G series of piston-powered targets. The KD6G series appears to have been the only one of the Globe targets to be built in substantial numbers. It was similar in size and configuration to the BTT series, but had a twin-fin tail. It was redesignated "MQM-40" in the early 1960s, by which time it was generally out of service.

text: The use of drones as decoys goes back to at least the 1950s, with the Northrop Crossbow tested in such a role. The first operational decoy drone was the McDonnell Douglas "ADM-20 Quail", which was carried by Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers to help them penetrate defended airspace.

text: By the late 1950s combat aircraft were capable of Mach 2, and so faster targets had to be developed to keep pace. Northrop designed a turbojet-powered Mach 2 target in the late 1950s, originally designated the Q-4 but later given the designation of AQM-35. In production form, it was a slender dart with wedge-shaped stubby wings, swept conventional tail assembly, and a General Electric J85 turbojet engine, like that used on the Northrop F-5 fighter.

text: Nuclear tests[edit]

text: In 1946, eight B-17 Flying Fortresses were transformed by American airmen into drones for collecting radioactive data. They were controlled at takeoff and landing from a transmitter on a jeep, and during flight by a transmitter on another B-17. They were used on Bikini Atoll (Operation Crossroads) to gather samples from inside the radioactive cloud. During test Baker, two drones were flown directly above the explosion; when the shock wave reached them, both gained height, and the lowest was damaged. The U.S. Navy conducted similar tests with Grumman F6F Hellcat drones. The B-17 drones were employed in a similar manner in Operation Sandstone in 1947, and in Operation Greenhouse in 1951. In this latter test, also several Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star jets were used, modified into drones by Sperry Corporation; however, the complex system resulted in a very high accident rate. One of the B-17 drones, tail number 44-83525, is currently under restoration at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base.

text: Reconnaissance platforms[edit]

text: In the late 1950s, along with the Falconer, the US Army acquired another reconnaissance drone, the Aerojet-General SD-2 Overseer. It had a similar configuration to the Falconer, but featured a vee tail and was about twice as heavy.

text: The success of drones as targets led to their use for other missions. The well-proven Ryan Firebee was a good platform for such experiments, and tests to evaluate it for the reconnaissance mission proved highly successful. A series of reconnaissance drones derived from the Firebee, the Ryan Model 147 Lightning Bug series, were used by the US to spy on North Vietnam, Communist China, and North Korea in the 1960s and early 1970s.

text: The Lightning Bugs were not the only long-range reconnaissance drones developed in the 1960s. The US developed other, more specialized reconnaissance drones: the Ryan "Model 154", the Ryan and Boeing "Compass Copes", and the Lockheed D-21, all of which were more or less cloaked in secrecy.[13]

text: Secret projects[edit]

text: The USSR also developed a number of reconnaissance drones, though since many programs the Soviets pursued were cloaked in secrecy, details of these aircraft are unclear and contradictory.

text: Vietnam War: Reconnaissance Drones[edit]

text: By late 1959, the only spy plane available to the US was the U-2. Spy satellites were another year and half away, and the SR-71 Blackbird was still on the drawing board.[14] In such climate, concerns appeared about the negative publicity from the foreseen capture of US airmen on the communist territory. Pilots' fears were realized in May 1960, when U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR.[14] Not surprisingly, work intensified on an unmanned drone which would be capable of penetrating deep into enemy territory, and return with precise military intelligence. Within three months of the downing of the U-2, the highly classified UAV (called RPV back then) program was born, under the code name of Red Wagon.[14]

text: Just after the incident involving the US Navy destroyers USS Maddox (DD-731) and USS Turner Joy (DD-951), and even before it escalated into the presidential "Tonkin Gulf Resolution" and war with North Vietnam, the USAF had issued an immediate order for the UAV units to deploy immediately for Southeast Asia on any available C-130s or C-133s.[15] The first birds (drones) would be Ryan 147Bs (AQM-34s) piggy-backed on C-130s, after completing their missions they would be parachuted for recovery near Taiwan.

text: USAF drones (UAVs) of the Strategic Air Command deployed to the Republic of South Vietnam (RVN) as the 4025th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing in 1964. In 1966 the unit was redesignated as the 350th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing.

text: The Squadron operated Ryan Firebees, launching them from modified DC-130A Hercules transport aircraft, normally two drones under each wing, each Hercules carrying 4 drones total. The UAVs deployed parachutes upon completing their missions and were usually recovered by helicopters which were tasked for those missions.

text: The North Vietnamese Air Force (NVAF) utilized U.S. Drone flights to practice their aerial combat skills, and although claiming several successful interceptions, only 6 are known to have been shot down by NVAF MiGs.[16][17]

text:
U.S. Drones (UAVs) Downed by NVAF MiGs in the Vietnam War 1966-1971[18][19]

Date
Interceptor[20] Type/Weapon Type
Interceptor Unit
Drone Type
USAF Unit/Remarks

3/04/1966
MiG-21/AA-2 Atoll (K-13) Air to Air Missile
921st Fighter Regiment (FR)
Ryan Firebee AQM-34 series[21]
350th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (SRS), 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing (SRW)[21]/This was the first U.S. drone downed by the NVAF.

3/05/1966
MiG-21/AA-2 Atoll
921st FR
AQM-34
350th SRS, 100th SRW

9/21/1968
MiG-21/Unknown
921st FR
AQM-34
350th SRS, 100th SRW

12/?/1969
MiG-21/Unknown
921st FR
AQM-34
350th SRS, 100th SRW/both December kills were made by Nguyen Van Coc[22]

12/?/1969
MiG-21/Unknown
921st FR
AQM-34
350th SRS, 100th SRW

3/9/1971
MiG-17/23mm & 37mm cannon
923rd FR
AQM-34
350th SRS, 100th SRW/Shortly after destroying the drone, the attacking MiG and pilot were lost to unknown causes.[16]

text: From August 1964, until their last combat flight on 30 April 1975 (the fall of Saigon), the USAF 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing would launch 3,435 Ryan reconnaissance drones over North Vietnam and its surrounding areas, at a cost of about 554 UAVs lost to all causes during the war.[23]

text: Post-war reflections[edit]

text: The usefulness of robot aircraft for reconnaissance had been demonstrated in Vietnam. At the same time, early steps were being taken to use them in active combat at sea and on land, but battlefield Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) would not come into their own until the 1980s.

text: During the early years, target drones were often launched from aircraft; or off a rail using solid-fuel rocket assisted takeoff (RATO) boosters; or hydraulic, electromagnetic, or pneumatic catapult. Very small target drones can be launched by an elastic bungee catapult. Few target drones have landing gear, and so they are generally recovered by parachute or, in some cases, by a skid landing. Beginning in April 1966, and lasting through the end of the war in 1975, the USAF successfully conducted approximately 2,655 Mid-Air Retrieval System (MARS) catches, out of 2,745 attempts, primarily using the Ryan 147J model drone.[24]

text: The most combat sorties flown during the war were made by the Ryan 147SC (military designation AQM-34L) with 1,651 missions. About 211 AQM-34Ls were lost during the war. The highest mission bird was a 147SC, named "Tom Cat", it accomplished 68 combat missions in Vietnam, before failing to return on 25 September 1974. Tom Cat was followed by Budweiser (with 63 missions), Ryan's Daughter (52 missions), and Baby Duck (46 missions).[25]

text: The largest UAVs in Vietnam were the 147T, TE, and TF (Military model AQM-34P, 34Q, and 34R). These machines were 30' long, and had 32' wing spans, with 2,800 lb thrust engines. These flew 28, 268, and 216 combat sorties respectively; of which 23 AQM-34Q drones were lost, AQM-34R machines were destroyed, and 6 AQM-34P models never made it home.[25]

text: Modern era[edit]

text: Battlefield UAVs[edit]

text: The attitude towards UAVs, which were often seen as unreliable and expensive toys, changed dramatically with the Israeli Air Force’s victory over the Syrian Air Force in 1982. Israel’s coordinated use of UAVs alongside manned aircraft allowed the state to quickly destroy dozens of Syrian aircraft with minimal losses. Israeli drones were used as electronic decoys, electronic jammers as well as for real time video reconnaissance.[26]

text: The US military is entering a new era in which UAVs will be critical to SIGINT payloads, or Electronic countermeasures systems should be in widespread use following 2010, with the UAVs controlled and relaying data back over high-bandwidth data links in real time, linked to ground, air, sea, and space platforms. The trend had been emerging before the American war in Afghanistan began in 2001, but was greatly accelerated by the use of UAVs in that conflict. The Predator RQ-1L UAV (General Atomics) was the first deployed UAV to the Balkans in 1995 Iraq in 1996 and was proved very effective in Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as Afghanistan.

text: Miniature and Micro UAVs[edit]

text: Another growth field in UAVs are miniature UAVs, ranging from "micro aerial vehicles (MAVs)" and miniature UAVs that can be carried by an infantryman to UAVs that can be carried and launched like an infantry man-portable air-defense system.

text: Endurance UAVs[edit]

text: The idea of designing a UAV that could remain in the air for a long time has been around for decades, but only became an operational reality in the 21st century. Endurance UAVs for low-altitude and high-altitude operation, the latter sometimes referred to as "high-altitude long-endurance (HALE)" UAVs, are now in full service.[27]

text: On August 21, 1998, an AAI Aerosonde named Laima becomes the first UAV to cross the Atlantic Ocean, completing the flight in 26 hours.

text: Beamed power UAV experiments[edit]

text: The idea of using UAVs as a cheaper alternative to satellites for atmospheric research, earth and weather observation, and particularly communications goes back at least to the late 1950s, with conceptual studies focused on UAVs with conventional propulsion, or new forms of propulsion using microwave beamed power or photovoltaic solar cells.

text: Raytheon suggested what would now be described as a UAV using beamed power, flying at an altitude of 15 kilometers (9.3 mi), as far back as 1959, and actually performed a proof-of-concept demonstration in 1964, with a transmitting antenna powering a helicopter on a 20-meter (65 foot) tether. The helicopter carried a rectifying antenna or "rectenna" array incorporating thousands of diodes to convert the microwave beam into useful electrical power.

text: The 1964 demonstration received a good deal of publicity, but nothing came of it, since enthusiasm for Earth satellites was very high and the rectenna system was heavy and inefficient. However, in the 1970s, NASA became interested in beamed power for space applications, and, in 1982, published a design for a much lighter and cheaper rectenna system.

text: The NASA rectenna was made of a thin plastic film, with dipole antennas and receiving circuits embedded in its surface. In 1987, the Canadian Communications Research Center used such an improved rectenna to power a UAV with a wingspan of 5 meters (16 feet 5 inches) and a weight of 4.5 kilograms (9.9 pounds), as part of the Stationary High Altitude Relay Platform (SHARP) project. The SHARP UAV flew in a circle at 150 meters (490 feet) above a transmitting antenna. The UAV required 150 watts, and was able to obtain this level of power from the 6 to 12 kilowatt microwave beam.

text: Solar power[edit]

text: In the 1980s, new attention was focused on aircraft propelled by solar power. Solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, are not very efficient, and the amount of power provided by the Sun over a unit area is relatively modest. A solar-powered aircraft must be lightly built to allow low-powered electric motors to get it off the ground. Such aircraft had been developed in the competition for the Kremer Prize for human-powered flight. In the early 1970s, Dr. Paul B. MacCready and his AeroVironment company took a fresh look at the challenge, and came up with an unorthodox aircraft, the "Gossamer Condor", to win the Kremer Prize on 23 August 1977.

text: In 1980, Dupont Corporation backed AeroVironment in an attempt to build a solar-powered piloted aircraft that could fly from Paris, France to England. The first prototype, the "Gossamer Penguin", was fragile and not very airworthy, but led to a better aircraft, the "Solar Challenger". This success led in turn to AeroVironment concepts for a solar-powered UAV. A solar-powered UAV could in principle stay aloft indefinitely, as long as it had a power-storage system to keep it flying at night. The aerodynamics of such an aircraft were challenging, since to reach high altitudes it had to be much lighter per unit area of wing surface than the Solar Challenger, and finding an energy storage system with the necessary high capacity and light weight was troublesome as well.

text: In 1983, AeroVironment investigated the concept, which was designated "High Altitude Solar (HALSOL)". The HALSOL prototype first flew in June 1983. HALSOL was a simple flying wing, with a span of 30 meters (98 feet 5 inches) and a width of 2.44 meters (8 feet). The main wing spar was made of carbon fiber composite tubing, with ribs made of styrofoam and braced with spruce and Kevlar, and covered with thin Mylar plastic film. The wing was light but remarkably strong.

text: The wing was built in five segments of equal span. Two gondolas hung from the center segment, which carried payload, radio control and telemetry electronics, and other gear. The gondolas also provided the landing gear. Each gondola had dual baby-buggy wheels in front and a bicycle wheel in back for landing gear. HALSOL was propelled by eight small electric motors driving variable-pitch propellers. There were two motors on the center wing segment, two motors on each inner wing segment, and one motor on each outer wing segment. The aircraft's total weight was about 185 kilograms (410 pounds), with about a tenth of that being payload.

text: Nine HALSOL flights took place in the summer of 1983 at the isolated and secret Groom Lake base in Nevada. The flights were conducted using radio control and battery power, as the aircraft had not been fitted with solar cells. HALSOL's aerodynamics were validated, but the investigation led to the conclusion that neither PV cell nor energy storage technology were mature enough to make the idea practical for the time being. HALSOL was put into storage, and as it turned out, would be resurrected for greater glories later, as discussed later. For the moment, though, it remained a complete secret.

text: In the mid-1980s, not long after HALSOL went into mothballs, NASA awarded a contract to Lockheed to study a solar-powered HALE UAV named the "Solar High Altitude Powered Platform (Solar HAPP)" for missions such as crop monitoring, military reconnaissance, and communications relay. The Solar HAPP effort did not result in a prototype. Solar-powered HALE UAVs were a concept a bit ahead of their time, and early practical work on endurance UAVs focused on more conventional concepts.

text: Amber[edit]

text: In 1984, DARPA issued a $40 million US contract to Leading Systems Incorporated (LSI) of Irvine, California, to build an endurance UAV named "Amber". Amber was to be used for photographic reconnaissance, ELINT missions, or as a cruise missile. The US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps were interested, and DARPA eventually passed control over to the Navy.

text: Amber was designed by a team under Abraham Karem of Leading Systems. Amber was 4.6 meters (15 feet) long, had a wingspan of 8.54 meters (28 feet), weighed 335 kilograms (740 pounds), and was powered by a four-cylinder liquid-cooled piston engine providing 49 kW (65 hp), driving a pusher propeller in the tail. The wing was mounted on a short pylon above the fuselage. The cruise missile version of Amber would discard the wing when it made its final dive on a target.

text: Amber had an inverted v-tail, which would prove a popular configuration for a pusher UAV, since it protected the propeller during takeoff and landing. The airframe was made of plastic and composite materials, mostly Kevlar, and the UAV had retractable stiltlike tricycle landing gear to ensure propeller clearance. Amber had a flight endurance of 38 hours or more.

text: The initial contract specified three "Basic Amber" A-45 cruise missile prototypes and three B-45 reconnaissance prototypes. Initial flights were in November 1986, with long-endurance flights the next year. Up to this time, Amber was a deep secret, but in 1987 details of the program were released.

text: Amber was only one of a number of different US UAV programs in planning at the time, and the US Congress became impatient with what was perceived as confusion and duplication of effort. Congress ordered a consolidation of UAV programs in 1987, freezing funding until June 1988, when the centralized Joint Program Office for UAV development, mentioned earlier, was established. Amber survived the consolidation of UAV efforts into JPO, resulting in the first "Amber I" reconnaissance UAV, which first flew in October 1989. Seven Amber Is were built, and were used in evaluations along with Basic Ambers through 1990. However, funding for reconnaissance assets was being cut, and in 1990 the Amber program was killed. LSI was faced with bankruptcy, and was bought out by General Atomics in 1991, who would later develop the Amber into an operational platform, the MQ-1 Predator[28]

text: U.S. domestic use[edit]

text: The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has experimented with several models of UAVs, and has begun purchasing a fleet of unarmed MQ-9 Reapers to survey the U.S. border with Mexico. "In more than six months of service, the Predator's surveillance aided in nearly 3900 arrests and the seizure of four tons of marijuana", border officials say.[29]

text: On May 18, 2006, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a certificate of authorization which will allow the M/RQ-1 and M/RQ-9 aircraft to be used within U.S. civilian airspace to search for survivors of disasters. Requests had been made in 2005 for the aircraft to be used in search and rescue operations following Hurricane Katrina, but because there was no FAA authorization in place at the time, the assets were not used. The Predator's infrared camera with digitally enhanced zoom has the capability of identifying the heat signature of a human body from an altitude of 10,000 feet, making the aircraft an ideal search and rescue tool.[30]

text: According to a 2006 Wall Street Journal report, "After distinguished service in war zones in recent years, unmanned planes are hitting turbulence as they battle to join airliners and weekend pilots in America's civilian skies. Drones face regulatory, safety and technological hurdles – even though demand for them is burgeoning. Government agencies want them for disaster relief, border surveillance and wildfire fighting, while private companies hope to one day use drones for a wide variety of tasks, such as inspecting pipelines and spraying pesticides on farms."[29]

text: Recreational drones became popular in the United States in 2015, with approximately one million expected to be sold by the end of the year.[31]

text: Drones Over Canada[edit]

text: The Government of Canada is considering the purchase of UAV's for arctic surveillance. The Canadian government wants to buy at least three high-altitude, unmanned aerial vehicles in what could be an attempt to salvage its Arctic sovereignty ambitions. The Canadian government wants to modify the existing Global Hawk drone, which can operate at 20,000 metres, to meet the rigours of flying in Canada's Far North.[32]

text: Small-player use[edit]

text: At one time the cost of miniature technology limited the usage of UAVs to larger and better funded groups such as the US military, but due to falling costs of UAV technology, including vehicles and monitoring equipment in their simpler forms, it has become available to groups that before would not have had the funding to use it. Beginning in 2004, the Lebanese Shi'ite terrorist organization, Hezbollah began operating the Mirsad-1 UAV, with the stated goal of arming the aircraft for cross-border attacks into Israel.[33]

text: Late US target drones[edit]

text:
Beech MQM-107 Streaker / CEI BQM-167 Skeeter
US Army FQM-117 Targets / MQM-170A Outlaw / BATS
Full-scale aircraft targets