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Precursors

In modern times, manned aviation appeared in the late 1700s and it took another century for heavier than air machines to take to the skies. Unmanned aircraft followed soon after the advent of the airplane, appearing around the time of the First World War (1916). However, the idea for a ‘flying machine’ was first conceived close to 2,500 years ago, in ancient Greece and China!

The first known autonomous flying machine has been credited to Archytas from the city of Tarantas or Tarentum in South Italy, known as Archytas the Tarantine. Archytas has been referred to as Leonardo Da Vinci of the Ancient World and was also the father of number one in number theory and the solution for doubling the cube. He was also possibly the first engineer,  designing and building various mechanisms.

In 425 B.C. he built a mechanical bird, which he called “the pigeon”, shown in Fig. 2.1. According to Cornelius Gellius in his Noctes Atticae, the bird was made of wood, nicely balanced with weights and flew using air (most likely steam) enclosed in its stomach. It is alleged that Archytas’ pigeon flew about 200 meters before falling to the ground, once all energy was used. The pigeon could not fly again, unless the mechanism was reset.

Flying pigeon of Archytas

China

During the same era in a different part of the Ancient World — China — at about 400 B.C., the Chinese were the first to document the idea of a vertical flight aircraft. The earliest version of the Chinese top consisted of feathers at the end of a stick. The stick was spun between the hands to generate enough lift before released into free flight.

Over the years, the Chinese experimented with other types of flying machines such as hot air balloons, rockets or kites. It is noteworthy that although some of these machines were used for  entertainment, some of the applications were military  in nature. In fact there are historical records of a “wooden hawk” that was used for reconnaissance around 450 B.C., as well as a kite in  the shape of a crow, which was employed during the Ming Dynasty to bomb enemy positions.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s air screw

Leonardo Da Vinci, in 1483, designed an aircraft capable of hovering, called aerial screw or air gyroscope, shown in Fig. 2.2. It had a 5 meter diameter and the idea was to make the shaft turn  and if enough force were applied, the machine could spun and fly. This machine is considered by some experts as the ancestor of today’s helicopter [3]. Da Vinci also devised a mechanical bird  in 1508 that would flap its wings by means of a double crank mechanism as it descended along a cable.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s air screw, a forerunner of modern helicopter designs

Montgolfier brothers

The first widely recognized manned flight took place in 1783 using a hot air balloon designed by the Montgolfier brothers. Soon after, similar attempts took place in England and for several  years ballooning dominated manned flights, until the first helicopters in the 1860s and later fixed-wing aircraft.

Two wars

Years before the first manned airplane flight on December 17, 1903, primitive UAV technology was used for combat and surveillance in at least two wars.

During the American Civil War, Charles Perley designed a hot-air balloon that could carry a basket laden with explosives attached to a timing mechanism. The timer would trip the balloon's hinged basket, and the explosives would drop out, igniting a fuse in the process.

During the Spanish-American War of 1898, Corporal William Eddy (US) took hundreds of surveillance photographs from a kite rigged with a long shutter release attached to its string.

Langley Aerodrome Number 5

In 1891,Samuel Pierpont Langley experimented with large, tandem-winged models powered by small steam and gasoline engines he called aerodromes. He flew his first mission on May 6, 1896, with his Aerodrome Number 5. It made the world's first successful flight of an unpiloted, engine-driven, heavier-than-aircraft of substantial size. It was launched from a spring-actuated catapult mounted on top of a houseboat on the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia. Two flights were made on May 6, one of 1,005 m (3,300 ft) and a second of 700 m (2,300 ft), at a speed of approximately 40 kph (25 mph).