Unmanned aerial vehicles during first world war and interwar period (1914-1939): military experiments, origins of international legal regulation

Abstract

An analysis of emergence and development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, during the First World War and in the interwar period (1914-1939) has been made. The authors have examined the first military experiments in the United States, Great Britain, France and the USSR that laid the grounds for the future use of UAVs in military. Particular attention has been paid to such prototypes as the American Kettering Bug and the British Aerial Target, and the first production models, in particular the OQ-2 Radioplane. The beginning of international legal regulation of the use of military aviation (the Paris Convention, the Hague Rules of Air Warfare), which also became the basis for the future regulation of the use of UAVs, has been also studied. It has been emphasized that despite technological limitations this period was key to the formation of engineering concepts and legal approaches that influenced the further development of drones.