DRONE AIRCRAFT DRONE BEE

Drone aircraft  



A Target drone is an unmanned, remote controlled aerial vehicle, usually used in the training of anti-aircraft crews

In their simplest form, target drones often resemble radio controlled model aircraft. More modern drones may use countermeasures, radar, and similar systems to mimic real aircraft

More advanced drones are made from large, old anti-ship missiles which had their warheads removed.

Obsolete jet and propeller-powered aircraft (such as the Fairey Firefly, Gloster Meteor and de Havilland Sea Vixen used at RAE Llanbedr between the 1950s and 1990s) have also been modified into remote controlled drones, but such modifications are costly.



the earliest unmanned aerial vehicle was A. M. Low's "Aerial Target" of 1916. Nikola Tesla described a fleet of unmanned aerial combat vehicles in 1915. A number of remote-controlled airplane advances followed, including the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, during and after World War I, including the first scale RPV (Remote Piloted Vehicle), developed by the film star and model airplane enthusiast Reginald Denny in 1935. More were made in the technology rush during the Second World War; these were used both to train antiaircraft gunners and to fly attack missions. Jet engines were applied after WW2, in such types as the Teledyne Ryan Firebee I of 1951, while companies like Beechcraft also got in the game with their Model 1001 for the United States Navy in 1955. Nevertheless, they were little more than remote-controlled airplanes until the Vietnam Era.

The birth of US UAVs (called RPVs at the time) began in 1959 when USAF officers, concerned about losing US pilots over hostile territory, began planning for the use of unmanned flights. This plan became intensified when Francis Gary Powers and his "secret" U-2 were shot down over the USSR in 1960. Within days, the highly classified UAV program was launched under the code name of "Red Wagon." The August 2 and August 4, 1964, clash in the Tonkin Gulf between naval units of the US and North Vietnamese Navy initiated America's highly classified UAVs into their first combat missions of the Vietnam War. Indeed, the USAF's UAVs were so secret, that even when the "Red Chinese" showed photographs of downed US UAVs via Wide World Photos, the official US response was, "no comment." Only on February 26, 1973, during testimony before the US House Appropriations Committee, did the US military officially confirm that they had been utilizing UAVs in Southeast Asia (Vietnam). While over 5,000 US airmen had been killed and over 1,000 more were either missing in action (MIA), or captured (prisoners of war/POW); the USAF 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing had flown approximately 3,435 UAV missions during the war, at a cost of about 554 UAVs lost to all causes. In the words of USAF General George S. Brown, Commander, Air Force Systems Command in 1972, "The only reason we need (UAVs) is that we don't want to needlessly expend the man in the cockpit." Later that same year, General John C. Meyer, Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command, stated, "we let the drone do the high-risk flying...the loss rate is high, but we are willing to risk more of them...they save lives!"

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syrian missile batteries in Lebanon caused heavy damage to Israeli fighter jets. As a result, Israel developed their first modern UAV. The images and radar decoying provided by these UAVs helped Israel to completely neutralize the Syrian air defenses at the start of the 1982 Lebanon War, resulting in no pilots downed.

With the maturing and miniaturization of applicable technologies as seen in the 1980s and 1990s, interest in UAVs grew within the higher echelons of the US military. UAVs were seen to offer the possibility of cheaper, more capable fighting machines that could be used without risk to aircrews. Initial generations were primarily surveillance aircraft, but some were armed (such as the MQ-1 Predator, which utilized AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles). An armed UAV is known as an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV).

As a tool for search and rescue, UAVs can help find humans lost in the wilderness, trapped in collapsed buildings, or adrift at sea. 

FAA designation


In the United States, the United States Navy and shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration has adopted the name unmanned aircraft (UA) to describe aircraft systems without the flight crew on board. It is preferred instead the usual names: UAV, drone, remotely piloted vehicle (RPV), remotely operated aircraft (ROA), models, radio control (R/Cs), etc.

More importantly, the term unmanned aircraft system (UAS) is preferred for the whole class, to emphasize the importance of other elements beyond an aircraft itself. A typical UAS consists of the:
unmanned aircraft (UA)
control system, such as Ground Control Station (GCS)
control link, a specialized datalink
other related support equipment.

For example, the RQ-7 Shadow UAS consists of four UAs, two GCSes, one portable GCS, one Launcher, two Ground Data Terminals (GDTs), one portable GDT, and one Remote Video Terminal. Certain military units are also fielded with a maintenance support vehicle.

Because of this systemic approach UAS have been not included in the United States Munitions List Category VIII – Aircraft and Associated Equipment. Vice versa, the “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems” are clearly mentioned at paragraph 121-16 Missile Technology Control Regime Annex of the United States Munitions List. More precisely, the Missile Technology Control Regime Annex levels rocket and unmanned aerial vehicle systems together.

The term UAS was since adopted by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the Civil Aviation Authority (United Kingdom) (CAA).

The term used previously for unmanned aircraft system was unmanned-aircraft vehicle system (UAVS).  




  
 Drone Bee



 Drones are male honey bees. They develop from eggs that have not been fertilized, and they cannot sting, since the worker bee's stinger is a modified ovipositor (an egg laying organ)

Etymology

The word 'drone' comes from the Old English 'dran or dræn' meaning 'male honeybee' which probably originated as an onomatopoeia. In the 16th century it was given the figurative sense of 'idler' or 'lazy worker', as male bees make no honey, which is sometimes given (as a folk etymology) of the word 'drone' itself.

Alongside 'dran', Old English also used the word 'dore' for male bees, but its meaning was broader, as is seen in 'dumbledore', meaning bumblebee. 'Dore' survives in Dutch as 'dar', meaning 'drone'.
Drone genetics

Drones carry only one type of allele because they are haploid (containing only one set of chromosomes from the mother). During the queen's egg developing process, a diploid cell with 32 chromosomes divides to generate haploid cells called gametes with 16 chromosomes. The result is a haploid egg, with chromosomes having a new combination of alleles at the various loci. This process is also called arrhenotokous parthenogenesis or simply arrhenotoky.

There is much debate in the scientific literature about the dynamics and apparent benefit of the combined forms of reproduction in honey bees and other social insects, known as the haplodiploid sex-determination system. The drones have two reproductive functions, They convert and extend the queen's single unfertilized egg into about 10 million genetically identical male sperm cells. Secondly, they serve as a vehicle to mate with a new queen to fertilize her eggs. Female worker bees develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid in origin, which means that the sperm from a father provides a second set of 16 chromosomes for a total of 32—one set from each parent. Since all the sperm cells produced by a particular drone are genetically identical, sisters are more closely related than full sisters of other animals where the sperm is not genetically identical.

A laying worker bee will exclusively produce unfertilized eggs, which develop into drones. As an exception to this rule, laying worker bees in some sub-species of honey bees may also produce diploid (and therefore female) fertile offspring in a process called thelytoky. In thelytoky the second set of chromosomes comes not from sperm, but from one of the three polar bodies during anaphase II of meiosis.

In honey bees, the genetics of offspring can best be controlled by artificially inseminating a queen with drones collected from a single hive, where the drones' mother is known. In the natural mating process, a queen mates with multiple drones, which may not come from the same hive. Therefore, in the natural mating process, batches of female offspring will have fathers of different genetic origin.
Anatomy

Drones are characterized by eyes that are twice the size of those of worker bees and queens, and a body size greater than that of worker bees, though usually smaller than the queen bee. Their abdomen is stouter than the abdomen of workers or queen. Although heavy bodied, drones must be able to fly fast enough to accompany the queen in flight.



Drones will die off in late fall and do not reappear in the bee hive until late spring.
Role

The drones' main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen. Drones in a hive do not usually mate with a virgin queen of the same hive because they drift from hive to hive. Mating generally takes place in or near drone congregation areas. It is poorly understood how these areas are selected, but they do exist. When a drone mates with its sister, the resultant queen will have a spotty brood pattern (numerous empty cells on a brood frame); again it is not clearly understood whether this is from higher mortality of the larvae, or by removal of these larvae by nurse bees. 

  


In flight

Several drones mate with a non-virgin queen on her mating flights a very small distance away from the hive where she lies in a mating position in front of hive. Mating occurs in flight, which accounts for the need of the drones for better vision, which is provided by their large eyes. Should a drone succeed in mating it will soon die because the penis and associated abdominal tissues are ripped from the drone's body at sexual intercourse.

Honey bee queen breeders may breed drones to be used for artificial insemination or open mating. A queen mating yard must have many drones to be successful.

In areas with severe winters, all drones are driven out of the hive in the autumn. A colony begins to rear drones in spring and drone population reaches its peak coinciding with the swarm season in late spring and early summer. The life expectancy of a drone is about 90 days.
Behaviour

Drones never exhibit typical worker bee behaviors such as nectar and pollen gathering, nursing, or hive construction. Since the worker bee's stinger is a modified ovipositor (an egg laying organ), the drones are defenseless and cannot defend the hive; although if picked up it will sometimes try to frighten the disturber by swinging its tail towards the fingers. Although the drone is highly specialized to one function, mating and continuing the propagation of the hive, it is not completely without side benefit to the hive. All bees, when they sense the hive's temperature deviating from proper limits, either generate heat by shivering, or exhaust heat by moving air with their wings—behaviors which drones do share with worker bees. They will also, in some species, if the nest is disturbed, buzz around the intruder in an attempt to disorient.

Drones fly in abundance in the early afternoon and are known to congregate in drone congregation areas a good distance away from the hive.