People old and young enjoy waxing nostalgic about and learning
some of the history of early electronics. Popular Electronics was published from October 1954 through
April 1985. As time permits, I will be glad to scan articles for you. All copyrights (if any) are hereby
acknowledged.
This angled, twin rotor, no-tail-rotor (NOTAR) configuration for a remotely controlled
helicopter was pioneered by
Kaman Aircraft Corporation
in the 1950s, and is still a unique part of their product lineup today. Per their
website, "The Unmanned Aerial Truck (UAT) continues a Kaman tradition of pioneering
unmanned helicopters. In 1957, Charles Kaman, founder of Kaman Corporation, created
the first pilotless aircraft." The embedded video below is
a 1957 edition of the "You
Asked for It" television show, where host Jack Smith reported on a demonstration
of the craft. It is amazingly stable and easy to fly, by a pilot in the cockpit,
from a ground-based remote control station, or from a remote control unit located
in another airborne helicopter. As you will see, this probably qualifies as the
first practical first-person-view (FPV)
remote controlled aircraft.
Robot Helicopter
Flown aloft by a technician operating a radio-control
setup from the ground is the "robot" helicopter above. The ground controller is
not a pilot himself; ease of control makes the robot capable of being "flown" by
anyone. Inside the helicopter, in addition to the R/C equipment, are facilities
for taking still pictures as well as TV pictures and transmitting them to ground
observers.
In addition, the robot can lay communications lines, fly a "memory" course fed
into a ground control station, and respond to commands transmitted from an airborne
control station in a second helicopter. Developed by The Kaman Aircraft Corporation,
Bloomfield, Connecticut, the robot is shown in the above photo being demonstrated
to U. S. Department of Defense officials at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
"You Asked for It" television show demonstrates Kaman remotely
piloted helicopter.
Posted June 19, 2022 (updated from original post on
7/23/2016)
Flown aloft by a technician operating a radio-control
setup from the ground is the "robot" helicopter above. The ground controller is
not a pilot himself; ease of control makes the robot capable of being "flown" by
anyone. Inside the helicopter, in addition to the R/C equipment, are facilities
for taking still pictures as well as TV pictures and transmitting them to ground
observers.