The story of the Kettering Bug, the World's First Aerial Drone

24. Germans launched unmanned flying bombs 1944

On June 13, 1944, the Germans sent unmanned aerial vehicles on bombing missions to London. The vehicle was launched from a rail system. It was not guided by radio, instead, it relied on a flight control system which was based on gyrocompass-controlled servo-motors. Contrary to popular belief, it did not fly until it ran out of fuel. It flew a specified distance, measured by the means of an odometer. A vane-driven anemometer measured wind speed, drove the odometer, which subtracted revolutions from a preset count until it reached zero. When it did it sent signals which cut off the fuel supply and altered the control surfaces, pushing the weapon into a dive.

The V-1, the first of Hitler’s “Vengeance Weapons” borrowed many of its features from the Kettering Bug, which preceded it by more than two decades. Hitler’s weapon was powered by a pulse jet, rather than a two-stroke engine, and it carried considerably more explosives than its wood and fabric predecessor. The two unmanned aerial vehicles shared many basic functions, which included gyrocompass control and rev counters for distance measurements. As Hap Arnold predicted, the Germans launched them from the northern European coast at British targets. The British citizens they victimized gave them several names, one of which was “Doodlebugs”.