The earliest recorded use of an unmanned aerial vehicle for warfighting occurred on Aug. 22, 1849, when the Austrians attacked the Italian city of Venice with unmanned balloons loaded with explosives. The first pilotless aircraft was built shortly after World War I. The U.S. Army led the way, commissioning a project to build an “aerial torpedo,” resulting in the “Kettering Bug” that was developed for wartime use, but which was not deployed in time to be used in World War I.

All the services continued to develop various types of UxS during the interwar years, much of it focused on UAS, such as actor Reginald Denny’s RP-1 target drone, adapted directly from his radio-controlled model aircraft. Development of, primarily, UAS continued through World War II and into the second half of the last century.

Compared to today’s technologies used to control autonomous systems, the technology of the ’50s, ’60s, and even the ’70s was primitive at best. In many cases, what was being attempted with drones was, literally, a bridge too far. In fact, the failure of UAS in those early days confirmed for many that UAS were just a bad idea, truncated UAS development, and spawned the development of entire communities of manned airborne systems.

But by 1970, DASH operations ceased fleet-wide. Although DASH was a sound concept, the Achilles’ heel of the system was the electronic remote-control system. The lack of a feedback loop from the drone to the controller, and its low radar signature and lack of transponder, accounted for 80 percent of all drone losses. While apocryphal to the point to being a bit of an urban legend, it was often said the most common call on the Navy fleet’s 1MC general announcing systems during the DASH-era was, “DASH officer, bridge,” when the unfortunate officer controlling the DASH was called to account for why “his” system had failed to return to the ship and crashed into the water.

Nowhere is this truer than for the U.S. Navy. Perhaps the classic case is the QH-50 DASH (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter) program. In April 1958, the Navy awarded Gyrodyne Company of America a contract to modify its small RON-1 Rotorcycle two-coaxial-rotor helicopter to explore its use as a remote-controlled drone capable of operating from small decks. The Navy bought nine QH-50A and three QH-50B drone helicopters. By 1963, the Navy approved large-scale production of the QH-50C, with the ultimate goal of putting three DASH units on all its 240 FRAM-I and FRAM-II destroyers. In January 1965, the Navy began to use the QH-50D as a reconnaissance and surveillance vehicle in Vietnam. Equipped with a real-time TV camera, a film camera, a transponder for better radar tracking, and a telemetry feedback link to inform the remote-control operator of drone responses to his commands, the QH-50D began to fly “SNOOPY” missions from destroyers off the Vietnamese coast. These missions had the purpose of providing over-the-horizon target data to the destroyer’s 5-inch batteries. Additionally, DASH was outfitted with antisubmarine warfare torpedoes to deal with the rapidly growing Soviet submarine menace, the idea being that DASH would attack the submarine with Mk 44 homing torpedoes or Mk 57 nuclear depth charges at a distance that exceeded the range of the submarine’s torpedoes.

But by 1970, DASH operations ceased fleet-wide. Although DASH was a sound concept, the Achilles’ heel of the system was the electronic remote-control system. The lack of a feedback loop from the drone to the controller, and its low radar signature and lack of transponder, accounted for 80 percent of all drone losses. While apocryphal to the point to being a bit of an urban legend, it was often said the most common call on the Navy fleet’s 1MC general announcing systems during the DASH-era was, “DASH officer, bridge,” when the unfortunate officer controlling the DASH was called to account for why “his” system had failed to return to the ship and crashed into the water.

Without putting too fine a point on it, the abject failure of DASH led directly to the Navy’s Light Airborne Multipurpose System (LAMPS), first the LAMPS Mk I system embodied in the SH-2F aircraft, later the LAMPS Mk III and CV-helo programs embodied in the SH-60B and SH-60F aircraft respectively, and today in the MH-60R and MH-60S aircraft. Collectively, these programs represent tens of billions of dollars invested in manned aircraft, with three to four operators per aircraft.

However, for unmanned systems to reach their full potential, important command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) considerations must be addressed. Simply put, the costs of military manpower mandate that we move beyond today’s “one man, one joystick, one vehicle” paradigm. If the vision of unmanned systems is to be fully realized, the focus must shift to their “intelligence” – that is, to their C4ISR capabilities – rather than remain on the platforms themselves.

While it would be too much of a stretch to say none of these communities would have come to exist if DASH had been successful, it is fair to speculate that at least some of this investment in manned aircraft would have been steered to DASH and its successor UAS programs a half-century ago had DASH made more of a splash (other than the “splash” of accidentally dropping into the ocean). Put another way, by the early 1970s, the “market space” for single- or multi-mission rotary-wing systems flying from small decks on U.S. Navy ships was completely filled by manned helicopters.

But today, due to rapid advances in various technologies, we have come full circle as the MQ-8B Fire Scout UAS is a new autonomous system to be deployed on Navy ships such as the littoral combat ship (LCS) to complement and supplement the MH-60R and MH-60S aircraft embarked. While DASH was a technological bridge too far, the mature UAS technology of the 21st century has already made Fire Scout a star.