What does word Drone means
My journey as ‘Dora the Explorer’ started. I realised use of word ‘Drone’ for remote controlled aircraft started in late 1930s. So what does the word drone means…
The word drone is evolved from Latin-old English word ‘Dran’ means Non-worker, lazy, idler. But that is not good enough a reason why remote controlled flying machines are called drones. In 16th century, Samuel Johnson in his Rambler -two penny sheet published twice a week- used the word drone as verb for humming high frequency sound of a fly. It was used as verb for more than two centuries.
Verb to Noun
American Admiral William Standley visited Great Britain in 1935. During his visit, he was demonstrated a remote controlled version of De Havilland DH 82B ‘Queen Bee’. Royal Navy was using the derivative of Tiger Moth bi-plane trainer aircraft for anti aircraft gunnery practice. The Admiral on return back, deputed Cmdr Delmer Fahrney of Naval Research Laboratory to develop similar system for the United States. Cmdr Delmer develop the system, owing to the situation that the aircraft would be idling in sky when anti aircraft guns would do firing practice, he termed the aircraft Drone in homage of ‘Queen Bee’.
Since then the remote controlled aircraft are called as ‘Drones‘.
My efforts to reply his simple question open whole new discipline of aviation that I was yet to explore…
So I, as Dora….started the next exploration voyage to trace the legacy of Drones before understanding ‘Things to know before purchasing my First Drone‘
