TABLE OF CONTENTS A decade had elapsed since the U.S. Navy's last experiment with radio- controlled flight when Admiral William Standley, the Chief of Naval Operations, attended the London Disarmament Conference in 1935. It was while there, in conversations with his counterpart in the Royal Navy, that he learned of their use of remotely piloted aircraft (Queen Bees) as target drones and of the improvement in British antiaircraft gunnery they had produced. Upon his return to the United States, he directed the Navy's Ordnance, Aeronautics, and Engineering Bureaus to develop a similar capability for training the American fleet. Included in this direction were his nine requirements for this drone:
A radio-controlled seaplane
A speed of at least 100 mph
A ceiling of 10,000 ft
A capability for taking off conventionally or being catapulted and landing conventionally under radio control
A capability for straight and level flight, normal turns, climbs, glides, and entering and pulling out of dives up to 45 while under radio control
A capability for using the complete range of the throttle under radio control
A minimum control range of 10 miles from the ground control to the plane
Armor not required
Weight of onboard control equipment not to exceed that of a normal crew.
The task of converting this paper specification to reality fell to Lieutenant Commander Delmer Fahrney. Delmer Stater Fahrney grew up almost as far from the sea as a person can be and never saw it until he reported to the U.S. Naval Academy...
