Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's)

UAV Shooting guided missile

    Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) are aircraft that are guided automously by remote, or by both means.  They carry sensors, electronic receivers and transmitters, or offensive ordnance.  They are used for strategic and operational reconnaissance and for battlefield surveillance.


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Assult Helicopters

Bell UH-1 Iroquis Flying during Vietnam

Cobra Gunship

    The mainstay of U.S. Army assault units in Vietnam was the Bell UH-1 Iroquis, popularly known as the huey, Army aviators were adding turret-mounted 40mm granade launchers, skid mounted rocket pads, and 7.62 machine guns.  All these experiments led to the development of the AH-1G Huey Cobra, deployed in 1967.  Both are still in service today they serval along side the Black Hawk and Apache.
  

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Stealth Technology

F-18 A Hornet Escorting A B-2 Stealth Bombers

   
   Since radar-detected defenses began taking a toll on Bomber Formations in WW II. Scientist, aircraft designers and military aviatiors had sought ways to avoid radar detection.  In the 1970's the development of such materials as carbon-fibers, composites, and high strength combat aircraft became possible.

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Mach 2

Marine F-4 Phantoms in Formation

 Soviet MiG-21

   A fourth generation of fighter began appearing in the 1960's. This aircraft could fly at about Mach 1.5 to 2.3. Advances in these planes engines and body styles "aerodynamics," made these aircraft much faster than their ancestors from the 1940's and 1950's. Fighters from this era are the U.S McDonnell Douglass F-4 phantom , and the Soviet MiG-21.


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Supersonic flight

F-14 Tomcat entering supersonic

   A third generation of fighters, designed to be equiped with powerful after burning engines were developed and entered into service in the mid-1950's. These fighters were developed for air-to-air combat. These were the first supersonic fighter planes.


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Carrier Aircraft

WWI aircraft carrier

   Carrier-Baised airpowers were quickly being advanced. During 1916 planes were being flown off 200ft boat decks. These ships had been transformed from commercial vessels. The concept of the true airrcraft carrier had been born.

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Naval Aviation

  

WWI Floatplane

   Equally significant progress was made in naval flying in World War I. Three distinct categories of combat aircraft emerged: long-range overwater reconnaissance and antisubmarine aircraft from shore bases, shorter range floatplane, reconnaisance and fighter aircraft, and lastly long-range flying boats; so called because their fuselages were shaped like the hull of a boat.


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Bombers

WWI Bomber in flight

   Bombers were harder to develop since they had to carry heavy loads over long distances. The first bombings were carried out by the Royal Naval Air Service. Many other countries began to produce bombers. One of these was the French Voisin V.

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Fighters

Famous Red Baron In his Fokker DR1

   The importance of aerial reconnaissance and artillery spotting made it clear that the ability to deny the enemy use of air space above the battle field was imparative. After realizing this,the Vickers company based in Britain exibited a two-seat biplane outfitted with machine guns. This will soon lead to mid-air battles  known as "dogfights".

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Jet Fighters

German Messerschmitt ME 262

   Steady advances during the 1920's in aircraft performance, improved structures, aerodynamics, and more powerful supercharged engines, led to the development of jet fighters. One of the first jet-aircraft introduced was the German Messerschmitt ME 262 in late 1944.

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Helicopters



Experimental German WWII Heicopter

   In the years before World War II, both the U.S Army and the RAF had experimented with autogiros. These were aircraft that employed a propeller to make a forward motion and used a freely rotating unmotorized rotor for lift.  Autogiros proved too expensive and mechanically complex and were supplanted by conventional light aircraft.  Helicopters played no role in WWII.


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Future Air Strategy

UAV Flying Over Afgan Dessert

Unmanned Aircraft in Flight

 The Military is studying  future use of unmanned aircraft which will reduce or eliminate casualties of pilots. Research is being conducted on large extremely light solar powered and conventional UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to do the job that manned aircraft are performing now.

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Future Aircraft

Uninhabited UCAV

The next wave of aircraft development in the U.S. is the uninhabited UAV or (UCAVs).  If the experimental boeing X-45 and Northrop Grumman work ,they will represent a small B-2 spirit stealth bomber and will vary in size from 1/3 - 1/6 the weight of a single seat fighter.


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