Shucks, Back in the early 40s, during WW2, I was in a navy squadron VU7-A on the west coast, routinely flying F6F Drones. We used them as targets for the fleet. We would fly them by RC to a practice site in the Pacific and service battleships, destroyers, whatever . This gave the anti-aircraft gunners a real airplane to shoot at. We thought that a drone that looked like a kamikaze and flew as fast as one would provide better practice than an old, slow towed white sleeve. Paid off too. The gunners became much more proficient.
In another part of the squadron, the drones were packed with explosives and guided to targets, bridges, or buildings by remote control and using TVs, much the same as today. Transmitter in the drone and TV receiver and control box in the drone controller, airborne and usually in the vicinity. All to awesome. We used vacuum tubes, as transistors had not yet been invented. Incidentally, full size drones were operational as far back as 1917. Golly, look what a few years of technology will do. It's all in my book 'Shoot only at the Red Airplane" ( this is not supposed to be an advertisement ) but sure sounds like one. Sorry, Bill Coons.
