The word "drone" is such a buzzword, I used to have a radio controlled aka RC plane as a kid and the US military tends to a military remote controlled aircraft an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle UAV.
But drone is single word easy to say with some buzz to it and I guess it also sounds ominous.
My understanding is a drone in the military sense is a flying target a UAV is not.
It took 20 years for people to stop calling anything tech/Internet related "cyber" now calling anything that flies is a drone that word will be with us until 2034.
'Drone' has become a fad word. But it has a real meaning - an un-manned aerial vehicle. So technically even a model helicopter is a drone. I've resisted using 'drone' carelessly, and always say 'quadcopter' or 'helicopter' or whatever is appropriate.
I'm sure there's a name for this phenomenon. We shouldn't be calling remotely piloted quadcopters drones either, but "drone" has become a modern colloquialism for any UAV that isn't a remote controlled hobby plane.
I imagine this is one of the ways in which language evolves, for better or for worse.
Regarding "cyber" you may want to tell retailers to stop using Cyber Monday, the FBI to rename its Cyber Crimes division, the CIA to rename its Cyber Security division and the NSA to rename its Cyber Operations unit. I agree that cyber is an old-school term and even sounds reminiscent of The Net and Hackers but it's doubtful it will go away any time soon.
The problem with the word "Drone" is that it's been used to mean everything, from the $5 toy that hovers above your hand, the $3000 VR Headset racing models, the military versions of the same that serve as recon tools, the modern man-portable-anti-tank weapons like the Switchblade [1]
, to full-sized ground attack airplane replacements like the Predator. It's insane that they've all been lumped under a single label.
Yes. And generally speaking, the term 'drone' is dumb and should be avoided because everybody gets weird ideas about what it means. It started as a pun, applied to a radio controlled aircraft rigged as a gunnery target, designed to fly once before dying like a drone bee. In just about any case where you might say "drone", there is a more precise and self-explanatory term you could use instead. For instance
Sounds weird, because we're used to media spam. But "drone" wrt. flying machines basically has 3 popular meanings - RC multicopters, any RC aircraft, and those big RC aircrafts with surveillance cameras and Hellfire missiles. Back because multicopter mania caused all RC aircraft to be rebranded as "drones", we used to call them by category - RC plane, RC helicopter, etc. So personally, I'm totally fine with NASA using the word "helicopter" - though I expect the name that's even more cool than "drone" - an UAV.
Yeah, I can see that. Too bad because "drone" also has the connotation of "dumb" or "slave", which is the opposite of what you want an autonomous vehicle to be that's sharing your airspace. (It makes more sense in the remotely-piloted case, as in the military versions.) But words take on their own lives, and I guess there are now "drones".
The word "drone" means an aircraft without a pilot. That's been the case since militaries began testing anti-aircraft weaponry with unmanned aircraft, around World War II. The reason it is used specifically for small RC multirotors (as opposed to RC fixed wing planes or single-rotor helicopters) is that more specific terms like "multirotor" or "quadcopter" are less well-known.
Speaking of which, why do we keep calling hobbyist quadcopters and such "drones"? Using the same word for unmanned military bombers and (relatively) harmless toys seems a bit counter-productive.
When did the name switch to 'drone'. Was it privacy scaremongering post iraq/afghanistan that made the term enter public usage?
Before that they might have called a remote controlled model helicopter, an rc plane, a quad copter or possibly even a uav
I really hope they don't use the word 'drone' when these go to market. This is my new least favorite overloaded word since 'hack'.
There are two kinds of autonomous flying machines that we call drones: small quadcopters that hobbyists fly around, and winged planes that our govt. uses to monitor and attack their enemies.
Most people think drone == drone. So there are two camps. The first thinks all drones are killing machines. This is wrong and causes irrational fear about our cool toys. The other camp thinks all drones are the friendly Amazon delivery helicopters. This reduces their concerns about a troublesome government program.
Sorry for the mini-rant. I just wish we'd separate the terms so we can deal with toys and war machines separately.
"A small drone helicopter passed within 30ft of the cockpit of an A319 plane while on the approach to Heathrow"
I really dislike the use of the word "drone" here. It really implies something that it's not - in that case it was a helicopter, in most other cases they use that term it's an RC quadcopter.
Unless we're going to start calling everything that's RC a drone.
For what it's worth, the people actually using these, namely the US Air Force doesn't call them drones in any official capacity - but alternatively UAS, RPV, RPA and very rarely UAV. In fact when I was a briefer, just as they were becoming ubiquitous, there was quite a bit of debate about calling them RPAs vs UAVs, which was the most used term at the time.
The DoD nor USG has never officially associated "Drone" with any specific flying operations.
In aviation in particular, "drone" used to connotative an armed military UAV. At some point the term morphed, and now it does indeed seem to be entirely synonymous with the literal definition of "UAV".
Doesn't matter. The word "drone" meant different things in the past too (and was used much less often, like "startup"). What matters is actual usage, and whether that usage is sensible, i.e. "carves reality at its joints".
Well, as an aerospace engineer, I don't think any vehicle should be called a drone. Unmanned [Combat] Aerial Vehicle is a better term, or even Remotely Piloted Vehicle.
But if we must use the label, let's say that a 'drone' meets one of the following:
* Has weapons
* Operates autonomously
* Operates over the horizon
* Requires runway facilities -- large remotely-piloted aircraft
Everything else is just RC, including the quadrotors in the article.
But drone is single word easy to say with some buzz to it and I guess it also sounds ominous.
My understanding is a drone in the military sense is a flying target a UAV is not.
It took 20 years for people to stop calling anything tech/Internet related "cyber" now calling anything that flies is a drone that word will be with us until 2034.
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