JFK’s older brother died in an early experiment with a drone-type aircraft in the latter part of WWII.
A bomber was stuffed with explosives destined for some sort of high-value target in the Third Reich. Joe Kennedy, Jr. was the pilot on that craft, which was followed by another plane, carrying the operator of the remote control for the, in essence, “flying bomb”. The controls weren’t sophisticated enough to get the plane off the ground, so a skeleton crew was needed for that part of the flight.
Kennedy and his crew were supposed to bail out once their plane was on the correct heading and the operator in the other plane would then “fly” it to its destination. But something went wrong, and the resulting explosion obliterated Kennedy, his crew, his plane, and (I think) the control plane as well.
It is believed that Joe, Jr. volunteered for the dangerous mission because he was jealous of all the attention his younger brother was getting after the PT-109 incident. He was his father’s choice to groom for the Presidency, and his death was a huge blow to the old man, who then had no choice but to transfer his aspirations (sp?) to JFK.
Tom Fey:
August 29th, 2015 at 7:35 pm
The use of the word “drone” to describe remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) began by the British in the late 1930’s. They produced the first mass-produced, radio controlled gunnery target in 1935, the de Havilland DH.82 “Queen Bee”. In homage to this founding UAV, subsequent UAV’s were called “drones”, and the U S Army Air Corps accepted this nomenclature after a delegation observed the Queen Bee in action.
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Lynne:
December 9th, 2014 at 8:21 pm
JFK’s older brother died in an early experiment with a drone-type aircraft in the latter part of WWII.
A bomber was stuffed with explosives destined for some sort of high-value target in the Third Reich. Joe Kennedy, Jr. was the pilot on that craft, which was followed by another plane, carrying the operator of the remote control for the, in essence, “flying bomb”. The controls weren’t sophisticated enough to get the plane off the ground, so a skeleton crew was needed for that part of the flight.
Kennedy and his crew were supposed to bail out once their plane was on the correct heading and the operator in the other plane would then “fly” it to its destination. But something went wrong, and the resulting explosion obliterated Kennedy, his crew, his plane, and (I think) the control plane as well.
It is believed that Joe, Jr. volunteered for the dangerous mission because he was jealous of all the attention his younger brother was getting after the PT-109 incident. He was his father’s choice to groom for the Presidency, and his death was a huge blow to the old man, who then had no choice but to transfer his aspirations (sp?) to JFK.
Tom Fey:
August 29th, 2015 at 7:35 pm
The use of the word “drone” to describe remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) began by the British in the late 1930’s. They produced the first mass-produced, radio controlled gunnery target in 1935, the de Havilland DH.82 “Queen Bee”. In homage to this founding UAV, subsequent UAV’s were called “drones”, and the U S Army Air Corps accepted this nomenclature after a delegation observed the Queen Bee in action.