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Old 10th March 2018, 21:26
DuncanM DuncanM is offline
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Re: DH.82 Queen Bee - wireless controlled air target plane

There is an exchange of letters in:

THE MEDITERRANEAN FLEET,1930–1939
Edited by
PAUL G. HALPERN

which state that the Fairey Queen drone was used in trials during May 1933, with HMS London shooting one down on 30 May 1933. (pages 27-28).

The Queen Bee was a related development of the above and Admiral Fisher states on page 73:

Quote:
We have started our Queen Bee(1) firings. Going slow with the attack on
them so as to preserve their lives, but despite firing one gun at a time with
powder filled shell, we have shot down 3 out of the four at 8000′.
(1) De Havilland ‘Queen Bee’, a radio-controlled version of the well-known trainer the
‘Tiger Moth’. It first flew in January 1935 and a sea-plane version could be catapulted from
warships for gunnery exercises by the Fleet. By the time production ended in July 1944 a
total of 380 had been built. Owen Thetford, British Naval Aircraft since 1912, 4th edn
(London, 1978), p. 387.
The USN spurred the use of target drones after a USN Admiral witnessed the Queen Bee being used as a target. See:

http://earlyradiohistory.us/1963hw40.htm
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