Pilotless drone aircraft

G….. Damn it.. you mean my old set of flippers and snorkel wont suffice :diablo::D

… now ive read it.. i cant get that tune out me head either :(:D

Merkle
You would need gills or a yellow submarine I think most of these were shot down over the sea.
Damn it I cannot get that song out of My head now.
G.

I was a radar technician engaged in Bloodhound Mk 2 trials at Aberporth – our radar and associated computer weighed 50 tons! On average I think we destroyed one Meteor or other target aircraft a week. The missile itself cost as much as a small house!Occasionally we had to stop due to Russian “trawlers” in the vicinity. My favourite occupation was tracking airliners approaching over the Atlatic.

i would love to know where these “drones” were shot down…. oooh the wealth of stuff that could be buried in the ground.. a aviation archaeologist heaven… saying that.. doubt much came down to earth after a bloodhound hit it , by the looks of the meteor in that Pathe film 😀

I think the large object tracking up the screen just before impact is actually the target – the missile is the small blob. Strange camera angle.

Ah yes, I see it now. 😮 I had assumed that because the missile was too small to see clearly that the film had been ‘doctored’ to show something intercepting (rather than a drone just exploding). As you say strange camera angle, or rather strange film orientation (the target and missile appear to swap places)!

Tha Royal Canadian Airforce used two Lancasters 10’s for the carrying and launching of Ryan Firebee pilotless drones, KB848 and KB851 were the ones converted to 10-DC spec. Perhaps the UK government had a similar scheme in mind.
I cannot see the point in trying to use anything as big as a Lancaster as a drone, especially when a lot of smaller stuff was around in quantity.

Richard

I suspect the large size was the whole point. If your primary target is a Tu-4 then you want something the same size to practice on. Similar radar cross-section etc. I presume the drone Lancaster was cancelled since by 1950s there was a project to drone the Lincoln (Lincoln U.5). At least one was converted by FRL but the project got canned at the beginning of 1957.

So basically these “drones” were piggybacked and set free from another aircraft with the hope that missiles would hit their target, or some sort of emergency destruct would be utilised. Going back to the PATHE link, Why doesnt a collection of these films get released, similar to the British Transport films ahve been 🙁

Tha Royal Canadian Airforce used two Lancasters 10’s for the carrying and launching of Ryan Firebee pilotless drones, KB848 and KB851 were the ones converted to 10-DC spec. Perhaps the UK government had a similar scheme in mind.
I cannot see the point in trying to use anything as big as a Lancaster as a drone, especially when a lot of smaller stuff was around in quantity.

Richard

I was a radar technician engaged in Bloodhound Mk 2 trials at Aberporth – our radar and associated computer weighed 50 tons! On average I think we destroyed one Meteor or other target aircraft a week. The missile itself cost as much as a small house!Occasionally we had to stop due to Russian “trawlers” in the vicinity. My favourite occupation was tracking airliners approaching over the Atlatic.

Exactly what was that supposed to be that hit the Meteor drone; early CGI? 😀

I think the large object tracking up the screen just before impact is actually the target – the missile is the small blob. Strange camera angle.

I liked the bit in the commentary about the “computer” guiding the bloodhound to the target. I bet my Golfs aircon has got a more powerful computer.

i wonder if it was just a big abacus 😀

I liked the bit in the commentary about the “computer” guiding the bloodhound to the target. I bet my Golfs aircon has got a more powerful computer.

Exactly what was that supposed to be that hit the Meteor drone; early CGI? 😀

CGI ??

Noo, Bristols famous bloodhound missile 😀 its all in the vid .

it was as real as the messerschmitt scene in 633 sqn 🙂

QB-17 Drone as a target for unguided air-to-air rockets…..fired from what I wonder?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA7LpbkpPps

Another QB-17 Drone destroyed by a Nike Hercules missile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBtSrn1mNmc

This footage was used during ‘The World at War’ series and was quite terrifying when I thought that there may be crew aboard; I was very relieved years later when I found out it was an unmanned drone!

Exactly what was that supposed to be that hit the Meteor drone; early CGI? 😀

i wonder if they were blown out of the sky.. re- missile trials , like the one on british pathe news, testing the bloodhound, they were knocking out a pilotless meteor jet

heres the link 🙂

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=35332