It took 2 hours to record 17 minutes of audio, curse you long-covid. F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
Hey I have one cure for that lingering cough, it will sound horrible and it is horrible to do but it does work . Get yourself to a hill , keep yourself rather warm around your neck and climb upwards for at least an hour . Coughing , heavy breathing , breathless to beat the band . When you are nearing exhaustion turn around , go home , get into bed and sleep , .. you'll wake up a few times , drink as much water as possible and stay in bed until you can't stand the boredom . The next day you'll be cured of that cough.
i considered myself reasonably well read on the topic of WW2 in the Pacific, this video shattered my selfconfidence to bits. Never heard of this before, thank you very much!
Very much the same. I knew about the B-17 drone that was once used in Europe against I believe a high priority target, but I've never heard about this!
@@tobiasGR3Y I actually explored aircraft wrecks from Guadalcanal and Seghe in the Solomons through cargo holds of sunken ships at Truk all the way to Yap, but this is the first time ever I heard of TDR-1, true eye opener for me. I'm really grateful for the video.
I'm continuously surprised by the level of technology derived from WW2. This was a revelation to me that they had TV guided drones back in WW2 that was actually used operationally. So many techs were flat out sci-fi such as the helicopter, terrain mapping radar, radar guided AA guns, jets, ballistic missiles, computers, nukes, etc, etc.
Allegedly, the B36 bomber had a special radar that would fake a radar return to an Soviet radar and make it think the bomber was somewhere else. Lots of high tech back then but, the cost was too high for mass production or too sensitive for civilian use.
"I'm continuously surprised by the level of technology derived from WW2. This was a revelation to me that they had TV guided drones back in WW2 that was actually used operationally." Try looking into all forms of guided weapons. IIRC, of the bigger nations, only Italy built nothing like it(that i've found out at least). And the Soviets never pushed their project anywhere close to finished or operational use as it was instantly understood to be a very low return for the investment for them, but UK, USA, Japan and Germany all used guided weapons during WWII. And if you start looking into the guidance solutions, some of them are ridiculously far out headscratchers.
Never heard of these before and their use in the Pacific; heard of the radio controlled B-17s, but not these. This kind of technology probably sent the heads of the old "battleship" admirals spinning.
As well at the 'Aphrodite' and 'Anvil' missions being flown from RAF Fersfield, the USAAF were experimenting with aerial devices with a similar mission to the German 'Fritz' glider bombs, Essentially radio controlled gliders launched from under a B-17. These were known on the base as 'Bats'. This came from an acquaintance of mine, who was working as a technician on the base at the time. He was not involved in the programme, but said these devices were to be seen in the hangar.
I'd heard of the TDR-1 before as 'America's first cruise missile' but hadn't realized its development was considerably more complex and interesting. Great video!
After nigh on 60 years of interest in the aerial part of WW2, this is the first I've ever seen or heard of this. Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for putting this together.
Forrest and trees, especially with the ammount of material there is in all the various archives and extra being de-classified and added to it all the time. I'm sure this took an immense ammount of research but most of the material may have been just sitting in a box somewhere till the right person came along.
I remember seeing this at the museum in Florida, but I was confused as to what it was and I don't think there was any information about it. Thank you for putting in some awesome research! I'm surprised how much footage there is of this!
The USN target drones and attack drones were inspired by the Fairey Queen and Queen Bee target drones, after a USN admiral witnessed the Royal Navy using them for AA practise in the late 1930s. The RN had also developed an attack drone in the late 1920s, that was designed for ship to ship use; the RAE Larynx attack drone.
Fascinating Rex. I know a LOT of WW2 stuff but this is the first I’ve heard of this fascinating aircraft - and the TDR-1’s are the grandparents of all our Western drones! Get well soon mate! 👍👍
A fascinating, little known story of ww2 aviation. I had no idea about this. Guided bombs like this put this technology a step ahead of Germanys unguided v-1. This channel never disappoints.
@@1anmagnus Didn't even know these things existed!!! Knew that the US had used TV guided weapons based on B-17 and B-24 however, plus the existence of an Exocet type weapon in the US Navy service in 1944/45 (ASM-2 Bat active radar homing glide bomb).
@@db5757 They did. Fully active radar homing anti ship glide bomb. lock weapon radar on target before release and let it go. Bomb then guides itself to the target. the electronics in the weapon was somewhat unreliable however, as was most thermionic tube tech at the time.
The Germans guided weapons such as Fritz-X, were radio controlled with the operator guiding the missile from a control plane, with the guided missile having a flare in the tail for visual tracking! It was fairly successful at first, but the allies discovered the frequencies the guidance system worked on, and developed various jamming devices. Sinking the Italian battleship Roma, severly damaging the Italian battleship Italia, and the HMS Warspite, and several other ships that were damaged to various degrees was the weapons greatest success, but counter measures quickly rendered if ineffective. Although the American guided drones would have been susceptible to jamming, I doubt the Japanese could have e developed or fielded an effective jammer. Their electronics industry was much inferior to that of the Americans or the British.
Most interesting! It was not mentioned but these early remote piloted weapons all had an 'Achilles heal' and that was having their radio jammed. That's what stopped the German Frits-X, or at least limited it greatly. I could see that if TDR-1 had become common the Japanese would have learned the same trick.
i doubt it. because japanese technology of ww2 was way way behind of allies or germans. all "high" technology they got was from germany. otherwise it was no radar no micropchips obsession of today. even their ships were not welded. japan was pretty backwards at the time of ww2 anyway...
@@cancermcaids7688They did finish their guided missiles by the end of the war. Made them small enough to be carried by heavy fighters too. However, like most of the best Japanese weapons, they were held in reserve for the defense of home islands.
@@cancermcaids7688 The Imperial Japanese Navy was very nearly the first victim of electronic warfare, in this case conducted by the Russian Navy in 1904. The Japanese auxiliary cruiser Shinano Maru had located the Russian Baltic Fleet in Tsushima Strait, and was communicating the fleet's location by telegraph to the Imperial Japanese Fleet HQ. The captain of the Russian warship Ural requested permission to disrupt the Japanese communications link by attempting to transmit a stronger radio signal over the Shinano Maru's signal, hoping to distort the Japanese signal at the receiving end. Russian Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky refused the advice and denied the Ural permission to electronically jam the enemy, which in those circumstances might have proved invaluable. The intelligence the Japanese gained ultimately led to the decisive Battle of Tsushima.
Wonderful video! I've been researching WWII drones for an article about the television systems they used (I write the television history column for the Antique Wireless Association Journal), so I really appreciate extra insights. And thanks for publishing your sources! The quality of the cameras of the period was barely adequate for the job, and the whole technology of electronic television was barely 10 years old, so the images received were grainy, coarse and shaky. That they did it at all is a testament to the engineers and of course the naval aviators who had to fly them with those awful pictures.
Excellent job, Rex. I knew of the testing of R/C usage by the Navy in WW2 because of Joe Kennedy's death but had never heard of the TDR program. Great photos and footage and just the right amount of info included without going into how many rivets and coats of paint, etc.😁 I give this one a 9.75( gotta hold out on the "10". 🙂
That airframe with the cockpit reminds me of old mail-service and hobby airplanes that u could see on small countryside, unpaved airfields in the past.
... huh. I'd also never heard of this before. The concepts they were toying with sound incredibly modern tbh, not just in terms of making drones, but in terms of how to employ them. That is wild.
I remember seeing a part of a movie when I was about 4 years old. In the movie, 2 kids climbed into a plane that later took off. Then the kids walked to the cockpit which was empty, but the plane was steering itself and was full of explosives. I remember the plane blowing up, but not much more
The BQM-34 Firebee, which you show, was indeed used in combat as far back as the late 1960s. They were employed in large numbers over North Vietnam conducting electronic warfare in coordination with USAF RB-66 Destroyers and US Navy EA-3 Skywarriors suppressing enemy radars during attacks on NVA and Viet Cong positions and for low level photo reconnaissance (Firefly and Lightning Bug variants). The USAF by then had successfully fired Maverick missiles from BQM-34s in tests. One of the combat variants of the Firebee is on display at the Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton OH showing the combat damage it survived over North Vietnam.
I've patiently waited for this story to be told! I flew a TDR-1 in the late '70's or early '80's. I would have to check the dates. It was a fabulous episode that started in Blakesburg Iowa and ended at Harvey Young Airport in Tulsa. I don't know where it went after that. I flew it several times out of Harveys. What a nice airplane. Touches down about 40 indicated. A unique touch was that the engine instruments were in the side of the engine cowlings. This required actually looking at the engines. What a concept.
What a cool story! I had read that a few survived the war and were registered as civil aircraft but never read anything from anyone who actually flew one.
Sounds like there's another story involving at least one airframe converted to piloted, or a piloted test version, that survived for some time after the War. Quite a few of the stills in the video do show a cockpit.
I'm always amazed when the military makes a decision to withdraw a weapon that works, inly because it doesn't work "well enough". I'm a firm believer in the "something is better than nothing" philosophy of combat. What makes this decision even stranger is that the drones were not diverting assets during their time in theater.
The old ways still worked fine, and there are only so many hard targets you can use the drones on. I get the feeling that they used the trial to hit all the difficult targets that couldn't be dealt with by high-flying B-29s.
The story goes back, indirectly, to WW1 (c.1918) with the Kettering Bug. UAV's of all kinds are a fascinating topic in there own right. Interesting video as always! Many thanks!
Wow! This video is truly stunning. I’d never heard of anything close to the TDR-1, (except for the remote controlled B-17s in Europe). Imagine, the way it came to light was a jungle wreck in New Guinea. Good job, Rex!
My Grandfather said once later on in life after seeing a video on the Drone B-17's that were made in ww2 that he did work on radio control projects in ww2. While he's passed now, I can't help but wonder if this was what he actually worked on.
Do you have access to any of his service records or diaries that may indicate where he served or where he was trained in radio equipment? Obviously, his entrance testing had shown how intelligent he was and he may have been part way through college when the war kicked off for America. Mark from Melbourne Australia
Not specifically. According to him he was trained in Radar operations. And that he went between college and training in the US and Canada along the east coast, but other than that I don't really know what he did.@@markfryer9880
The saying goes,"everything old is new again".Although these aircraft weren't UAV's,they certainly were a step in that direction.Thanks for a video on ANOTHER aircraft I'd never heard of.
TDR-1 was an interesting platform, but when the US Navy was able to get a wrecked German V-1, they created thousands of improved copies called Loons. Today there is a Loon on display at Missile Park, immediately adjacent to US Naval Air Station Point Mugu located in Ventura County, California just off Pacific Coast Highway. In addition to the Loon, 14 other drones and missiles are on display as well as an F-4 Phantom and an F-14 Tomcat.
Hugely interesting story! Thanks a lot fr this bit of aviation history, Rex. Who knew? USA wasn't behind the Axis in drone tech, they just weren't interested beyond a test run! :)
cool video, I wonder if you'd be interested in doing follow-ups about the F6F drones used in Korea for dam attacks and the Firebee attack drone tests in Vietnam
I spent the entire video drawing mental parallels to the FPV drones and loitering munitions currently seeing use in Ukraine. I'd taken for granted that these were new weapons, but it seems history continues to repeat itself
Thanks Rex. I remember reading about the camera mounted missiles used during the Viet Nam war so watch this video it is interesting to see how far back it goes.
On the way to my Ship the USS Saratoga CVA 60 in 1970 I was on a supply ship waiting to be transferred to it and on the way to meet it at sea they rolled out a helicopter looking drone which looked like it was made to drop a depth charge or bomb which they pref-lighted and an operator with a control box took it off and it lifted up a short distance then took off in a straight line while the operator moved every switch on his control box while a couple of officers shouted at him to try different things but the thing just flew out of sight and I learned crashed into the ocean. It was SUV sized and my guess is experimental. There was no skin on it just metal tubing in a cradle shape where a bomb or torpedo would sit lengthwise in the center..
@@steveh1792 a bit later in WW1, but yes. I think people might be surprised how the concept is almost as old as powered flight itself. The biggest aspect of the doodlebug might be the engineering - it was a remarkable feat of disposability.
From never hearing of these aircraft before, to three different channels I follow covering them in the space of a few weeks! (I know how long these videos take to make so I highly doubt anyone is copying anyone - I'm just fascinated by the synchronicity of it. It's not the first time it's happened, either. Spooky.)
Dad worked on this Project at Great Lakes. He worked at Brewster ( Naval Aircraft Factory.) They bombed an Obsolete Lighthouse on the Great Lakes in Training that’s in your Video. Pop also set up the TV Studio and Robot Display at the ‘39/‘40 World’s Fair in New York. By the way … his first Wife’s Name was Edna( he painted it on several Drones). He also worked on the PARAFRAG Project, was a Close Friend of Admiral King and worked for the Bureau of Naval Scientific Research and Development. He was a Technical Air Intelligence Man as well.
I first saw that TDR-1 at the Pensacola Naval Air Museum and was very surprised to learn about it. But I also surprisingly really like the looks of it.
The idea for spotting drones in Desert Storm came from the experiences of Israeli drone success even earlier than that. In fact, I believe the drones used by Iowa were Israeli made.
@@slartybarfastb3648 I was sure there was earlier use than that, but didn't have all the research. so I stuck with what i knew for sure. Also, spotting for artillery and recon is the earliest use of balloons and aircraft in warfare, especially since WW1. Some of the most famous airplanes in history flew recon. Yet people act surprised that we use drones with cameras for the exact same purpose and have since drones became practical.
@@SoloRenegade After Ukraine, no one will doubt the usefulness of artillery spotting drones again. The combination of precision guided munitions and spotting drones is a blessing and a nightmare for battlefield commanders.
@@slartybarfastb3648 nobody doubted their usefulness prior to Ukraine except the ignorant people who knew nothing about artillery to begin with. The US has been using drones like this for many decades already, people just never realized it. many still haven't realized it.
The USAF was using versions of the BQM-34 Firebee in combat way back during the Vietnam War. There were versions used for electronic warfare jamming and spoofing enemy radars during bombing raids on the north, and other versions used for low level photo reconnaissance. By the end of the war the USAF had successfully integrated Maverick missiles to the Firebee. There is a combat version of the Firebee on display at the Museum of the US Air Force still sporting the battle damage it returned with after a raid over North Vietnam.
Interesting topic and well presented. I continue to be fascinated with the origins and development of military tech. The era of the second ww is rich with invention and experimentation of new and far reaching the. Thank you for exploring this little known side note to military aviation.
This was pretty interesting. I knew about the remote controlled B-17s, but this is new to me. Given that they were built from non critical materials and with that success rate, I have to wonder if there was some other reason beyond those given for the cancellation.
Really makes you wonder what could have been. Since the big complaint about the drone was that it was low and slow, what could have happened if they had put the technology to use in more cutting edge aircraft and allowed additional development on the technological side. Maybe predator type drones in Nam?
Interstate Aircraft was designing a jet powered attack drone for the US Navy but the program was cancelled at the end of WWII. The Navy was more interested in things like the Regulus Missile.
There are parts of a TDR-1 at Taylor Airport in DeKalb, Illinois, the intention is to eventually build a complete display aircraft. DeKalb is where the factory was located, chosen because of the local Wurlitzer factory's expertise in production woodworking. Parts of the old factory still stand as well; it's last use was a motor factory for GE Appliances. The buildings are currently empty and up for sale.
I have an out-of-print copy of "Americal Kamikaze" by James J. Hall. While it could have used a ghost writer to make it more readable, it DID cover the interesting points in the TD1 history and deployment details. Gus Briegleb (of glider design fame) actually worked in the facility during the design phases - the former Auburn auto plant which was boarded up to hide the secret project.
Awesome story. For some odd reason I vaguely remember reading about these aircraft, but more so of the TV guided B-17 bombers that were used against the German submarine pens.
Thanks, it's a new one on me, never heard of pilotless combat aircraft during WW2, should have done I suppose! though I did hear about a German anti ship missile with a TV camera in it, but I think it may have been fly-by-wire.
You're referring to the Fritz-X, developed by Germany. It was typically launched from a Heinkel 111 and controlled by short-range radio from the forward bombardier's position. The Fritz-X did have a television camera on board for sighting purposes. It took very little time for the Allies to determine the control frequencies for the Fritz-X and effectively jam them. If I remember rightly, the Fritz-X was only used twice or three times. There was once instance where the Fritz-X struck the target ship, but was travelling so fast that it passed through the ship's hull and exploded in the water underneath it.
As well as Fritz-X the Germans also deployed the HS293 anti-shipping glide bomb, which was guided visually via a radio link. However, according to Wikipedia, there were also experimental wire-guided (HS293B) and television-guided (HS293D) variants, neither of which entered operational service. The ship that was hit by a Fritz-X that passed right through it was the battleship HMS Warspite. Fritz-X was designed to penetrate heavy armour, while HS293 was intended for unarmoured targets like merchant ships.
Yes, I agree, thanks fellas! I did watch a video on it quite a while ago. The 'tech', like much of Germany's ideas, was taken / reverse engineered/ or modified, into modern day weapons that we now see today! Damned clever those Germans were. UK also had some weird innovations in weaponry too!
The TDR on Display is at the Naval Aviation Museum onboard Pensacola Florida, the home of all US Naval aviation. A second TDR restoration is in work but on display at the newly minted American Unmanned Vehicle Museum (AUVM) in Caddo Mills, Texas (just Northeast of Dallas). It should be higlighted the early target drones where not only used to test anti-aircraft defenses aboard ships. The earliest model (OQ-2) built by the Radioplane aircraft company, were intended to give Army, Navy, and Marine anti-aircraft crews live targets to practice live fire on. It greatly improved crew accuracry being able to integrate the characteristics of real moving aircraft with subsequent versions and models providing better simulations acheiving higher altitudes and speeds. the TDR stands out amongst the WW2 drones as being one of the more successful pioneering combat drones in contrast to the aircraft and strategies of using remote controlled heavy bombers to ram targets such as in the case of operation Aphrodite (USAAF) and Operation Avil (USN). Great work as always Rex, I look forward to your next video and hope to see videos on the former mentioned operations as well as the role of the Radioplane target drones in WW2.
Vindicates what I've been saying all along. FPV was not started by some RC hobbiests in the 1980's... The Apollo space program was putting cameras on their vehicles and thinking nothing of it by then.
If this had been April 1st I would have been amused - now I’m staggered at how incredibly advanced this whole concept was. Things like predator drones are portrayed as new tech and yes they are different tech but the concept is surely the same - well I guess it depends on whether you view 80 years as ‘new’
First I have heard of this marvel. Amazing how advanced some tech was for those times. Too bad some hard heads prevented this system being further developed, might have saved a lot of pilot's lives.
This is why the wehrmacht wunderwaffen myth is so strange to me. The allies had so much more advanced equipment, it's just that nobody ever talks about it. I mean seriously, compaired to a TV guided attack drone, the Fritz-X is looking rather basic.
The Germans were hamstrung by both resource limitations and the fact that they sent a lot of the scientists and engineers who could have developed as good if not better CCTV to concentration camps. "Luckily".
Extremely interesting. I'm surprised I have never heard of this before, but I guess it was a relatively secret and compartmented project. But the results they got seem incredible. The fact they could pilot them remotely and receive a video feed in the 1940s is honestly difficult for me to comprehend. I kept expecting you to say April fools.
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It took 2 hours to record 17 minutes of audio, curse you long-covid.
F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
Hey I have one cure for that lingering cough, it will sound horrible and it is horrible to do but it does work .
Get yourself to a hill , keep yourself rather warm around your neck and climb upwards for at least an hour . Coughing , heavy breathing , breathless to beat the band .
When you are nearing exhaustion turn around , go home , get into bed and sleep , .. you'll wake up a few times , drink as much water as possible and stay in bed until you can't stand the boredom .
The next day you'll be cured of that cough.
long covid sucks. I suffer from it myself, though luckily it's a mild case.
@lifesahobby How about we don't listen to random quacks on the internet and just listen to a doctor. People have died because of COVID "cures".
Get well.
Still waiting for the net part of the Hawker Company story, Rex. Great work, as usual, though.👍
i considered myself reasonably well read on the topic of WW2 in the Pacific, this video shattered my selfconfidence to bits. Never heard of this before, thank you very much!
same
Very much the same. I knew about the B-17 drone that was once used in Europe against I believe a high priority target, but I've never heard about this!
@@tobiasGR3YJoseph Kennedy Jr. died in a premature explosion on such a mission. He was certainly destined to become President, but fate intervened.
@@tobiasGR3Y I actually explored aircraft wrecks from Guadalcanal and Seghe in the Solomons through cargo holds of sunken ships at Truk all the way to Yap, but this is the first time ever I heard of TDR-1, true eye opener for me. I'm really grateful for the video.
Likewise
I'm continuously surprised by the level of technology derived from WW2. This was a revelation to me that they had TV guided drones back in WW2 that was actually used operationally. So many techs were flat out sci-fi such as the helicopter, terrain mapping radar, radar guided AA guns, jets, ballistic missiles, computers, nukes, etc, etc.
It surprises me greatly too that most of our tech now, basically was made back in WW2, its just nowadays its more perfected.
Guess who was working on the war effort? Science Fiction writers.
Allegedly, the B36 bomber had a special radar that would fake a radar return to an Soviet radar and make it think the bomber was somewhere else.
Lots of high tech back then but, the cost was too high for mass production or too sensitive for civilian use.
Me, too.
I knew about the pigeons but never heard of these.
"I'm continuously surprised by the level of technology derived from WW2. This was a revelation to me that they had TV guided drones back in WW2 that was actually used operationally."
Try looking into all forms of guided weapons. IIRC, of the bigger nations, only Italy built nothing like it(that i've found out at least). And the Soviets never pushed their project anywhere close to finished or operational use as it was instantly understood to be a very low return for the investment for them, but UK, USA, Japan and Germany all used guided weapons during WWII.
And if you start looking into the guidance solutions, some of them are ridiculously far out headscratchers.
Never heard of these before and their use in the Pacific; heard of the radio controlled B-17s, but not these.
This kind of technology probably sent the heads of the old "battleship" admirals spinning.
Most of the resistance came from the "pilot mafia". They didn't want anything taking away from the resources and glory of manned a/c.
Yeah, was going to mention JFK's big brother, I think that one used TV as well
When I saw the notification (it came in 6 days late), a secret version of the converted B-17 is was what I was expecting too.
Maybe not. Admiral Lee, the most famous American Battleship Admiral of WWII was quite the innovative Radar, CIC, and Firecontrol promoter.
As well at the 'Aphrodite' and 'Anvil' missions being flown from RAF Fersfield, the USAAF were experimenting with aerial devices with a similar mission to the German 'Fritz' glider bombs, Essentially radio controlled gliders launched from under a B-17. These were known on the base as 'Bats'. This came from an acquaintance of mine, who was working as a technician on the base at the time. He was not involved in the programme, but said these devices were to be seen in the hangar.
I'd heard of the TDR-1 before as 'America's first cruise missile' but hadn't realized its development was considerably more complex and interesting.
Great video!
No th first was the Kettering bug.
After nigh on 60 years of interest in the aerial part of WW2, this is the first I've ever seen or heard of this.
Absolutely fascinating.
Thanks for putting this together.
Ditto!
Considering the amount of archival footage you found, I'm surprised so many of us haven't heard of these before.
I know right!
Forrest and trees, especially with the ammount of material there is in all the various archives and extra being de-classified and added to it all the time.
I'm sure this took an immense ammount of research but most of the material may have been just sitting in a box somewhere till the right person came along.
said box may or may not be damp and covered in mold, filled with dead bugs, and other archive related woes. @@dzzope
I remember seeing this at the museum in Florida, but I was confused as to what it was and I don't think there was any information about it. Thank you for putting in some awesome research! I'm surprised how much footage there is of this!
I just got back from the Pensacola air museum last week. And spotted this plane for the first time then.
@@michealclark4788 still amazing theirs still a couple or so of these left
You should send this vid to the museam
There’s one of these in the Naval aviation museum in Pensacola FL, I remember being amazed as a child that we had drones in WW2
The USN target drones and attack drones were inspired by the Fairey Queen and Queen Bee target drones, after a USN admiral witnessed the Royal Navy using them for AA practise in the late 1930s. The RN had also developed an attack drone in the late 1920s, that was designed for ship to ship use; the RAE Larynx attack drone.
Fascinating Rex.
I know a LOT of WW2 stuff but this is the first I’ve heard of this fascinating aircraft - and the TDR-1’s are the grandparents of all our Western drones!
Get well soon mate! 👍👍
A fascinating, little known story of ww2 aviation. I had no idea about this. Guided bombs like this put this technology a step ahead of Germanys unguided v-1. This channel never disappoints.
Germany did have radio controlled bombs but these drones are certainly a step further, fascinating.
@@1anmagnus Didn't even know these things existed!!! Knew that the US had used TV guided weapons based on B-17 and B-24 however, plus the existence of an Exocet type weapon in the US Navy service in 1944/45 (ASM-2 Bat active radar homing glide bomb).
The U.S.used a guided glide bomb called the Bat. I believe they started using them in 1944.
@@db5757 They did. Fully active radar homing anti ship glide bomb. lock weapon radar on target before release and let it go. Bomb then guides itself to the target. the electronics in the weapon was somewhat unreliable however, as was most thermionic tube tech at the time.
The Germans guided weapons such as Fritz-X, were radio controlled with the operator guiding the missile from a control plane, with the guided missile having a flare in the tail for visual tracking!
It was fairly successful at first, but the allies discovered the frequencies the guidance system worked on, and developed various jamming devices.
Sinking the Italian battleship Roma, severly damaging the Italian battleship Italia, and the HMS Warspite, and several other ships that were damaged to various degrees was the weapons greatest success, but counter measures quickly rendered if ineffective.
Although the American guided drones would have been susceptible to jamming, I doubt the Japanese could have e developed or fielded an effective jammer. Their electronics industry was much inferior to that of the Americans or the British.
Most interesting! It was not mentioned but these early remote piloted weapons all had an 'Achilles heal' and that was having their radio jammed. That's what stopped the German Frits-X, or at least limited it greatly. I could see that if TDR-1 had become common the Japanese would have learned the same trick.
Jamming and ECM are still a major issue for combat UAVs today. See many reports from Ukraine.
This is how we knew how to jam the Germans!
i doubt it. because japanese technology of ww2 was way way behind of allies or germans. all "high" technology they got was from germany. otherwise it was no radar no micropchips obsession of today. even their ships were not welded.
japan was pretty backwards at the time of ww2 anyway...
@@cancermcaids7688They did finish their guided missiles by the end of the war. Made them small enough to be carried by heavy fighters too. However, like most of the best Japanese weapons, they were held in reserve for the defense of home islands.
@@cancermcaids7688 The Imperial Japanese Navy was very nearly the first victim of electronic warfare, in this case conducted by the Russian Navy in 1904. The Japanese auxiliary cruiser Shinano Maru had located the Russian Baltic Fleet in Tsushima Strait, and was communicating the fleet's location by telegraph to the Imperial Japanese Fleet HQ. The captain of the Russian warship Ural requested permission to disrupt the Japanese communications link by attempting to transmit a stronger radio signal over the Shinano Maru's signal, hoping to distort the Japanese signal at the receiving end. Russian Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky refused the advice and denied the Ural permission to electronically jam the enemy, which in those circumstances might have proved invaluable. The intelligence the Japanese gained ultimately led to the decisive Battle of Tsushima.
Wonderful video! I've been researching WWII drones for an article about the television systems they used (I write the television history column for the Antique Wireless Association Journal), so I really appreciate extra insights. And thanks for publishing your sources! The quality of the cameras of the period was barely adequate for the job, and the whole technology of electronic television was barely 10 years old, so the images received were grainy, coarse and shaky. That they did it at all is a testament to the engineers and of course the naval aviators who had to fly them with those awful pictures.
It's always fascinating how elegant aircraft can be when you get rid of the cockpit et al.
Excellent job, Rex. I knew of the testing of R/C usage by the Navy in WW2 because of Joe Kennedy's death but had never heard of the TDR program. Great photos and footage and just the right amount of info included without going into how many rivets and coats of paint, etc.😁 I give this one a 9.75( gotta hold out on the "10". 🙂
I'm a huge fan of WW2 planes and I've never heard of this project. Very cool.
It may have been a drone, but it was actually a rather nice looking airplane.
RUclips viewers: "We've seen every possible WWII aviation topic done to death. Just give it up!"
Rex: "Hold my coat ..."
That was FASCINATING!
Rex has really delivered with this video.
That airframe with the cockpit reminds me of old mail-service and hobby airplanes that u could see on small countryside, unpaved airfields in the past.
... huh. I'd also never heard of this before.
The concepts they were toying with sound incredibly modern tbh, not just in terms of making drones, but in terms of how to employ them. That is wild.
Ikr?
Fascinating. Not surprised that the top brass didn't like them. They were still trying to get their heads around battleships being obsolete.
I'm surprised by the amount of film you managed to find of this program. I think we can be really glad that the US Archives work so well.
I remember seeing a part of a movie when I was about 4 years old. In the movie, 2 kids climbed into a plane that later took off. Then the kids walked to the cockpit which was empty, but the plane was steering itself and was full of explosives. I remember the plane blowing up, but not much more
I had no idea that there were RPVs in WWII. This is really interesting, and important to remember.
The BQM-34 Firebee, which you show, was indeed used in combat as far back as the late 1960s. They were employed in large numbers over North Vietnam conducting electronic warfare in coordination with USAF RB-66 Destroyers and US Navy EA-3 Skywarriors suppressing enemy radars during attacks on NVA and Viet Cong positions and for low level photo reconnaissance (Firefly and Lightning Bug variants). The USAF by then had successfully fired Maverick missiles from BQM-34s in tests. One of the combat variants of the Firebee is on display at the Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton OH showing the combat damage it survived over North Vietnam.
I've patiently waited for this story to be told! I flew a TDR-1 in the late '70's or early '80's. I would have to check the dates.
It was a fabulous episode that started in Blakesburg Iowa and ended at Harvey Young Airport in Tulsa.
I don't know where it went after that. I flew it several times out of Harveys. What a nice airplane. Touches down about 40 indicated.
A unique touch was that the engine instruments were in the side of the engine cowlings. This required actually looking at the engines. What a concept.
What a cool story! I had read that a few survived the war and were registered as civil aircraft but never read anything from anyone who actually flew one.
Some German aircraft had the same feature
Sounds like there's another story involving at least one airframe converted to piloted, or a piloted test version, that survived for some time after the War. Quite a few of the stills in the video do show a cockpit.
8:35 The TDR with the test cockpit was a nice looking plane.
I'm always amazed when the military makes a decision to withdraw a weapon that works, inly because it doesn't work "well enough". I'm a firm believer in the "something is better than nothing" philosophy of combat. What makes this decision even stranger is that the drones were not diverting assets during their time in theater.
They wanted to focus on bombers and worried they might be a threat
The old ways still worked fine, and there are only so many hard targets you can use the drones on. I get the feeling that they used the trial to hit all the difficult targets that couldn't be dealt with by high-flying B-29s.
Sometimes even the US military's budget isn't infinite during WWII.
The story goes back, indirectly, to WW1 (c.1918) with the Kettering Bug. UAV's of all kinds are a fascinating topic in there own right. Interesting video as always! Many thanks!
Wow! I've never heard of this weapon system. Great story telling and reporting! Newly subbed and looking forward to watching more!!
Wow! This video is truly stunning. I’d never heard of anything close to the TDR-1, (except for the remote controlled B-17s in Europe).
Imagine, the way it came to light was a jungle wreck in New Guinea.
Good job, Rex!
My Grandfather said once later on in life after seeing a video on the Drone B-17's that were made in ww2 that he did work on radio control projects in ww2. While he's passed now, I can't help but wonder if this was what he actually worked on.
Do you have access to any of his service records or diaries that may indicate where he served or where he was trained in radio equipment?
Obviously, his entrance testing had shown how intelligent he was and he may have been part way through college when the war kicked off for America.
Mark from Melbourne Australia
Not specifically. According to him he was trained in Radar operations. And that he went between college and training in the US and Canada along the east coast, but other than that I don't really know what he did.@@markfryer9880
These drones are actually really pleasing to the eye, pretty surprising
The saying goes,"everything old is new again".Although these aircraft weren't UAV's,they certainly were a step in that direction.Thanks for a video on ANOTHER aircraft I'd never heard of.
? They weren’t Unmanned Aerial Vehicles?
I learned something today. I love it when that happens. Good job man.
TDR-1 was an interesting platform, but when the US Navy was able to get a wrecked German V-1, they created thousands of improved copies called Loons. Today there is a Loon on display at Missile Park, immediately adjacent to US Naval Air Station Point Mugu located in Ventura County, California just off Pacific Coast Highway. In addition to the Loon, 14 other drones and missiles are on display as well as an F-4 Phantom and an F-14 Tomcat.
Hugely interesting story! Thanks a lot fr this bit of aviation history, Rex.
Who knew? USA wasn't behind the Axis in drone tech, they just weren't interested beyond a test run! :)
The US had already developed a pilotless drone in WW1 called the Doodle Bug, it's considered to be the world's first cruise missile.
Shown in the video but not named, the US Navy already had a glide bomb with active radar homing called the BAT.
cool video, I wonder if you'd be interested in doing follow-ups about the F6F drones used in Korea for dam attacks and the Firebee attack drone tests in Vietnam
I spent the entire video drawing mental parallels to the FPV drones and loitering munitions currently seeing use in Ukraine.
I'd taken for granted that these were new weapons, but it seems history continues to repeat itself
I did not even know about this project being used in combat. Thank you for making this video longer than 15 minutes.
Fascinating. I've never heard of this before. It's amazing to hear that this was achieved and put into action so long ago. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Rex. I remember reading about the camera mounted missiles used during the Viet Nam war so watch this video it is interesting to see how far back it goes.
Yeah, interesting. Like many others, I had never heard of the TDR-1 before. Thank you for enlightening me.
On the way to my Ship the USS Saratoga CVA 60 in 1970 I was on a supply ship waiting to be transferred to it and on the way to meet it at sea they rolled out a helicopter looking drone which looked like it was made to drop a depth charge or bomb which they pref-lighted and an operator with a control box took it off and it lifted up a short distance then took off in a straight line while the operator moved every switch on his control box while a couple of officers shouted at him to try different things but the thing just flew out of sight and I learned crashed into the ocean. It was SUV sized and my guess is experimental. There was no skin on it just metal tubing in a cradle shape where a bomb or torpedo would sit lengthwise in the center..
QH-50 DASH?
Interesting, and in Britain we had the radio controlled DH Queen Bee, I think there is one existing, converted for a normal pilot.
The UK started work on radio-controlled drones as far back as WW1.
@@wbertie2604 As did the US with the Kettering "Doodle Bug".
@@steveh1792 a bit later in WW1, but yes. I think people might be surprised how the concept is almost as old as powered flight itself. The biggest aspect of the doodlebug might be the engineering - it was a remarkable feat of disposability.
Thank you for enlightening me with this video, Rex.
It made me aware of this aircraft since I've never heard of it before, until I watched this video.
From never hearing of these aircraft before, to three different channels I follow covering them in the space of a few weeks! (I know how long these videos take to make so I highly doubt anyone is copying anyone - I'm just fascinated by the synchronicity of it. It's not the first time it's happened, either. Spooky.)
Now that is a really good report.
This was an exceptionally interesting video. Thank you!
Maaaaate, you’ve achieved a SCOOP!
Dad worked on this Project at Great Lakes. He worked at Brewster ( Naval Aircraft Factory.) They bombed an Obsolete Lighthouse on the Great Lakes in Training that’s in your Video. Pop also set up the TV Studio and Robot Display at the ‘39/‘40 World’s Fair in New York. By the way … his first Wife’s Name was Edna( he painted it on several Drones). He also worked on the PARAFRAG Project, was a Close Friend of Admiral King and worked for the Bureau of Naval Scientific Research and Development. He was a Technical Air Intelligence Man as well.
Excellent video on an obscure topic. I've never seen so much footage of the drones in one place. You really did your work on this one. Thank you.
I first saw that TDR-1 at the Pensacola Naval Air Museum and was very surprised to learn about it. But I also surprisingly really like the looks of it.
A fantastic report, I'm so glad I'm a patron of this channel.
I’ve been waiting for ages for someone to cover these beauties. Thank you so much!
Drones were used in combat well before the Predator. The Iowa battleships used drone-spotted artillery in Desert Storm for example.
The idea for spotting drones in Desert Storm came from the experiences of Israeli drone success even earlier than that. In fact, I believe the drones used by Iowa were Israeli made.
@@slartybarfastb3648 I was sure there was earlier use than that, but didn't have all the research. so I stuck with what i knew for sure.
Also, spotting for artillery and recon is the earliest use of balloons and aircraft in warfare, especially since WW1. Some of the most famous airplanes in history flew recon. Yet people act surprised that we use drones with cameras for the exact same purpose and have since drones became practical.
@@SoloRenegade After Ukraine, no one will doubt the usefulness of artillery spotting drones again. The combination of precision guided munitions and spotting drones is a blessing and a nightmare for battlefield commanders.
@@slartybarfastb3648 nobody doubted their usefulness prior to Ukraine except the ignorant people who knew nothing about artillery to begin with.
The US has been using drones like this for many decades already, people just never realized it. many still haven't realized it.
The USAF was using versions of the BQM-34 Firebee in combat way back during the Vietnam War. There were versions used for electronic warfare jamming and spoofing enemy radars during bombing raids on the north, and other versions used for low level photo reconnaissance. By the end of the war the USAF had successfully integrated Maverick missiles to the Firebee. There is a combat version of the Firebee on display at the Museum of the US Air Force still sporting the battle damage it returned with after a raid over North Vietnam.
Absolutely fascinating. Thank you.
Interesting topic and well presented. I continue to be fascinated with the origins and development of military tech. The era of the second ww is rich with invention and experimentation of new and far reaching the. Thank you for exploring this little known side note to military aviation.
This was pretty interesting. I knew about the remote controlled B-17s, but this is new to me. Given that they were built from non critical materials and with that success rate, I have to wonder if there was some other reason beyond those given for the cancellation.
Really makes you wonder what could have been. Since the big complaint about the drone was that it was low and slow, what could have happened if they had put the technology to use in more cutting edge aircraft and allowed additional development on the technological side. Maybe predator type drones in Nam?
It belongs to the what if files, but yes it is still a valid question where things might have ended up if a faster plane had been made available?
Interstate Aircraft was designing a jet powered attack drone for the US Navy but the program was cancelled at the end of WWII. The Navy was more interested in things like the Regulus Missile.
Wow! Fantastic video and info! Great work!
Fascinating stuff! As always!
Brilliant work man
That was an interesting story! Never heard of this before! :-)
A outstanding video on something I’ve only heard vaguely about and wanted to know more for years
Excellent presentation as always !! Thanks !
There are parts of a TDR-1 at Taylor Airport in DeKalb, Illinois, the intention is to eventually build a complete display aircraft. DeKalb is where the factory was located, chosen because of the local Wurlitzer factory's expertise in production woodworking.
Parts of the old factory still stand as well; it's last use was a motor factory for GE Appliances. The buildings are currently empty and up for sale.
That was an awesome bit of research. Well done.
What a story, I had no idea that this aircraft existed and was used so effectively. Feel better soon!
I'd known about the TDR-1 for a long time but didn't know there was that much footage. Wow. Cool stuff.
Wow ! Thank you. I knew development was early but I didn't know it was THAT early. Thank you.
The TDR1 shown at the 8:26 mark of the video (Edna III) is on display at the Naval Aviation museum in Pensacola, FL
i can imagine the Japanese seeing these fly into targets, not knowing they were unmanned, and thinking "HEY!..we can do that!"
I've wondered about that too.
Badass! I had never heard of these before. Thank you!
well done id heard of this but several pics and vids were new to me thankyou
I have an out-of-print copy of "Americal Kamikaze" by James J. Hall. While it could have used a ghost writer to make it more readable, it DID cover the interesting points in the TD1 history and deployment details. Gus Briegleb (of glider design fame) actually worked in the facility during the design phases - the former Auburn auto plant which was boarded up to hide the secret project.
Awesome story. For some odd reason I vaguely remember reading about these aircraft, but more so of the TV guided B-17 bombers that were used against the German submarine pens.
Thanks, it's a new one on me, never heard of pilotless combat aircraft during WW2, should have done I suppose! though I did hear about a German anti ship missile with a TV camera in it, but I think it may have been fly-by-wire.
You're referring to the Fritz-X, developed by Germany. It was typically launched from a Heinkel 111 and controlled by short-range radio from the forward bombardier's position. The Fritz-X did have a television camera on board for sighting purposes.
It took very little time for the Allies to determine the control frequencies for the Fritz-X and effectively jam them. If I remember rightly, the Fritz-X was only used twice or three times. There was once instance where the Fritz-X struck the target ship, but was travelling so fast that it passed through the ship's hull and exploded in the water underneath it.
As well as Fritz-X the Germans also deployed the HS293 anti-shipping glide bomb, which was guided visually via a radio link. However, according to Wikipedia, there were also experimental wire-guided (HS293B) and television-guided (HS293D) variants, neither of which entered operational service.
The ship that was hit by a Fritz-X that passed right through it was the battleship HMS Warspite. Fritz-X was designed to penetrate heavy armour, while HS293 was intended for unarmoured targets like merchant ships.
Yes, I agree, thanks fellas! I did watch a video on it quite a while ago. The 'tech', like much of Germany's ideas, was taken / reverse engineered/ or modified, into modern day weapons that we now see today! Damned clever those Germans were. UK also had some weird innovations in weaponry too!
Seven years to progress from TV drones to I Love Lucy. What a country.
Great vid thanks
Absolutely fascinating story. Your channel is such a gem thank you so much.
The TDR on Display is at the Naval Aviation Museum onboard Pensacola Florida, the home of all US Naval aviation. A second TDR restoration is in work but on display at the newly minted American Unmanned Vehicle Museum (AUVM) in Caddo Mills, Texas (just Northeast of Dallas). It should be higlighted the early target drones where not only used to test anti-aircraft defenses aboard ships. The earliest model (OQ-2) built by the Radioplane aircraft company, were intended to give Army, Navy, and Marine anti-aircraft crews live targets to practice live fire on. It greatly improved crew accuracry being able to integrate the characteristics of real moving aircraft with subsequent versions and models providing better simulations acheiving higher altitudes and speeds.
the TDR stands out amongst the WW2 drones as being one of the more successful pioneering combat drones in contrast to the aircraft and strategies of using remote controlled heavy bombers to ram targets such as in the case of operation Aphrodite (USAAF) and Operation Avil (USN).
Great work as always Rex, I look forward to your next video and hope to see videos on the former mentioned operations as well as the role of the Radioplane target drones in WW2.
Vindicates what I've been saying all along.
FPV was not started by some RC hobbiests in the 1980's...
The Apollo space program was putting cameras on their vehicles and thinking nothing of it by then.
I learned about these a couple years ago, and I've been trying to find more information on them. Thanks for this video!
Rather shocking in terms of its advanced tech--a hidden gem unrecognized for far too long. Great vid!
If this had been April 1st I would have been amused - now I’m staggered at how incredibly advanced this whole concept was. Things like predator drones are portrayed as new tech and yes they are different tech but the concept is surely the same - well I guess it depends on whether you view 80 years as ‘new’
The big difference with the Predator was the pilot was flying it from the other side of the Planet!!!
Amazing topic i need to look more into advanced technologies used during the war
This is insane!!! I never heard of these before!!!
First I have heard of this marvel. Amazing how advanced some tech was for those times. Too bad some hard heads prevented this system being further developed, might have saved a lot of pilot's lives.
Really fascinating stuff! Thanks for sharing this.
Fascinating look into early drone technology!
Very cool info...never knew of any of this...thanks for the vidro!
This is why the wehrmacht wunderwaffen myth is so strange to me. The allies had so much more advanced equipment, it's just that nobody ever talks about it.
I mean seriously, compaired to a TV guided attack drone, the Fritz-X is looking rather basic.
The Germans were hamstrung by both resource limitations and the fact that they sent a lot of the scientists and engineers who could have developed as good if not better CCTV to concentration camps. "Luckily".
It's probably all just a case of something being more popular trough the What if- effect
Fantastic content and presentation
Once again, never heard of this one, thanks! Feel better!
Thank you for this post! I never heard about this before. 😀
This is one of your best videos.
Extremely interesting. I'm surprised I have never heard of this before, but I guess it was a relatively secret and compartmented project. But the results they got seem incredible. The fact they could pilot them remotely and receive a video feed in the 1940s is honestly difficult for me to comprehend. I kept expecting you to say April fools.
Have you done a video of the radio controlled B-17's used in WWII? I wonder how much technology was shared in that program with Operation Option.