Talk:British unmanned aerial vehicles of World War I

Article title
Overlooking the issue of capitalisation, the title for this article needs reconsidering. GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:55, 23 March 2021 (UTC) Is anyone re-considering this article and if so, who does this? How about "British Aerial Radio Control of Unmanned Vehicles in World War One"?


 * 1) have a read of Article titles for wikipolicy on naming.
 * 2) consider shifting the remote control boats to Coastal Motor Boat so the article can be specific to content
 * 3) read Help:Talk_pages which has instructions on 'signing' comments (it varies between mobile, desktop and visual editor). GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:33, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

1) Thanks for this - I'll read it. 2) The Controls for the Boats, Plane and Rocket were all derivatives of the successful designs from the Feltham Experimental Works and were the catalyst for the interwar development of remote control. Splitting them up will obscure this. The boats were controlled by operators with radio controllers (DCB Senders) in the aircraft so they had a significant 'Aerial' component. The IWM exhibition in the 1950's encompassed all three aspects; Boat, Plane and Rocket. The IWM seem to have realised the significance of this collection in their stores and have just told me they..... "have made sure the aerial target features in the long term planning that we are doing for Duxford." These were the World's first successful drones, the seed from which the rest followed. 3) Will read but I don't really want to become 'an editor'.


 * Whether you consider yourself an editor or not, you still need to sign so people can see who wrote and when. Like this --> GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:31, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry Graeme. I'm not sure whether you are most interested in the content or the editorial process...but for background - regarding the content of this particular subject, until a year or so ago the Aerial Target was deemed by most sources to have failed and been terminated. The fact that the Imperial War Museum had their Feltham collection was 'forgotten', even by their curators. The Royal Flying Corps secret patents had not been studied so it was not known that they matched and described the items in the surviving IWM collection. The re-assignment of the Feltham Works to re-apply their system and create Royal Navy DCBs had not been established. Details of the mysterious Feltham Works were unknown. The post war research into British military remote control was not known to stem from this work of the Feltham Works that passed via Biggin Hill to the Royal Aircraft Establishment. These are all very newly discovered aspects of the early history of UAV - 'drones'. In the literature the Aerial Target is often mentioned but the later USA Kettering Bug and Sperry projects (neither radio controlled nor long lived) feature most prominently. It is therefore important that the IWM are now aware and acknowledge that their Duxford stores hold parts of the World's first military drone.SamEllieJake (talk) 22:38, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

1918 aircraft-controlled unmanned boats
I've added an extract from Admiral Fitzherbert's letter of the 18th March 1918. SamEllieJake (talk) 15:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The Adjutant-General Investigation
I've added this section SamEllieJake (talk) 11:19, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Recent Archival Research
The Section on the recent research has been added. SamEllieJake (talk) 10:45, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Radio guidance and the Feltham Unit
Paragraph added on the locations of the Experimental Works