A target drone is an

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controll ...

, generally

remote controlled Teleoperation (or remote operation) indicates operation of a system or machine at a distance. It is similar in meaning to the phrase "remote control" but is usually encountered in research, academia and technology. It is most commonly associa ...

, usually used in the training of

anti-aircraft Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based ...

crews. One of the earliest drones was the British DH.82 Queen Bee, a variant of the Tiger Moth trainer aircraft operational from 1935. Its name led to the present term "drone". In their simplest form, target drones often resemble radio-controlled model aircraft. More modern drones may use countermeasures,

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

, and similar systems to mimic manned aircraft. More advanced drones are made from large, older missiles which have had their warheads removed. In the United Kingdom, obsolete

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

and

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

jet and propeller-powered aircraft (such as the Fairey Firefly, Gloster Meteor and de Havilland

Sea Vixen The de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen is a British twin-engine, twin boom-tailed, two-seat, carrier-based fleet air-defence fighter flown by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm during the 1950s through to the early 1970s. The Sea Vixen was designed by ...

used at RAE Llanbedr between the 1950s and 1990s) have also been modified into remote-controlled drones, but such modifications are costly. With a much larger budget, the U.S. military has been more likely to convert retired aircraft or older versions of still serving aircraft (e.g.,

QF-4 Phantom II The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and Bowe ...

and QF-16 Fighting Falcon) into remotely piloted targets for

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sig ...

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

and US Marine Corps use as Full-Scale Aerial Targets.

List of target drones

Purpose built

* Aerial Target *

Airspeed Queen Wasp The Airspeed AS.30 Queen Wasp was a British pilotless target aircraft built by Airspeed Limited at Portsmouth during the Second World War. Although intended for both Royal Air Force and Royal Navy use, the aircraft never went into series ...

de Havilland Queen Bee The de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth is a 1930s British biplane designed by Geoffrey de Havilland and built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and other operators as a primary trainer aircraf ...

DRDO Abhyas DRDO Abhyas is a high-speed expendable aerial target (HEAT) being built by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for the Indian Armed Forces. Development As of January 2013 ...

DRDO Fluffy The DRDO Fluffy was a target drone designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation's Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) in Bangalore in early 1970s for use by the Indian Armed Forces. It had a maximum enduran ...

DRDO Lakshya Lakshya ("target" in Sanskrit) is an Indian remotely piloted high speed target drone system developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) of DRDO. A variant ''Lakshya-1'' is used to perform discreet aerial reconnaissance of batt ...

DRDO Ulka Ulka (Sanskrit: meteor or firebrand) is an air-launched expendable target drone of India. Description It has been developed by DRDO's laboratory Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE). Ulka was earlier simply known as MT (Missile Target). ...

Denel Dynamics Skua The Denel Dynamics Skua is a turbojet-engined target drone used to simulate fast-moving attack aircraft during surface-to-air and air-to-air training exercises and weapons tests. It is manufactured by the Denel Dynamics division of the South Afri ...

Meggitt Banshee The BTT3 Banshee, formerly the Target Technology Banshee & Meggitt Banshee, is a British target drone developed in the 1980s for air defence systems training. Design and development The Banshee was developed by Target Technology Ltd. The compa ...

* Aisheng Drone-2 * GAF Jindivik *

GAF Turana The GAF Turana was a target drone produced by the Australian Government Aircraft Factories (GAF). The name is believed to be from an Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainl ...

* MQM-170 * TAI Şimşek *

Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher The AQM-60 Kingfisher, originally designated XQ-5, was a target drone version of the USAF's X-7 ramjet test aircraft built by the Lockheed Corporation. The aircraft was designed by Kelly Johnson, who later created the Lockheed A-12 and its re ...

* BQM-34 Firebee * BQM-74 Chukar * BQM-167 Skeeter * Nord CT41 * Karrar (UCAV) * NCSIST Spark

Conversions

* Curtiss Queen Seamew * de Havilland Vampire * Fairey Queen *

Miles Queen Martinet The Miles M.25 Martinet was a target tug aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm (FAA) that was in service during the Second World War. It was the first British aircraft to be designed specifically for target towing. Work on t ...

* QB-17 Flying Fortress * QT-33 Shooting Star * QB-47 Stratojet * QF-86 Sabre * QF-100 Super Sabre * QF-102 and PQM-102 Delta Dagger * QF-106 Delta Dart *

* QF-16 Fighting Falcon * QF-9 Cougar

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Target Drone Targeting (warfare)