America's Secret WW2 Combat Drone That Bombed The Japanese | The TDR-1

This was a secret at the time, so secret that probably too few of the right people got to know about it to push the project along. The success rate back then ought to have spurred further research, not writing it off and forgetting about it.

Since no one else has done it, I will throw into the mix the fact the the later-to-be Marilyn Monroe's first job, (and first screen appearance) was in 1944 working for the Radioplane company, which was making RC drones, when the U.S. Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit was sent to the factory in Nan Nuys CA to shoot morale-boosting pictures of female workers. The drones, and Norma, as she then called, were launched. Fun Fact?

Great video! I never knew UAV technology had been developed during WWII, always thought it came about much later.

Few people know about these drones and the similarly sophisticated American glide bombs. Everyone says that only the Germans had "modern secret weapons", but that's not true.

The evaluation model with the cockpit, I would give three of my kidneys an arm and a few legs to have one of those. Looks great and looks like the best fun you can have with your pants on. One thing though, retractable gear please. Perfect.

Fascinating. Not surprised that the top brass didn't like them. They were still trying to get their heads around battleships being obsolete.

I've been working through another play of Hearts of Iron 3, this time of the Americans, and I've invented "V1 Flying Bombs." I'd been treating that as pure fiction, but now I know I can call them "TDR-2s" and pretend they're a rocket-powered version of the TDR-1. Very cool!

After seeing this, plus seeing the Fairey Battle video yesterday that I commented on similarly, one has to wonder just how the Luftwaffe would have coped with the technology for remote control - for want of a better word - Fairey Battle, BP Defiant, P40 etc. etc. (essentially anything that could carry a 500-lb bomb - or 500lb explosive payload at least) being unleashed in waves either in the case of the already by 1940 obsolete Battle, or later in the War anything that wasn't absolutely "up to date" e.g. early Mk Spitfires and Mustangs etc.

Absolute chaos I'd assume - and add to that, the actual manned fighters then gunning for the aching Luftwaffe pilots once they'd managed to at least attend to the drone fleet.

Rather shocking in terms of its advanced tech--a hidden gem unrecognized for far too long. Great vid!

The WWII RCA version of the GoPro! The TDR-1 was a remarkably modern looking design, so much that it ought to be resurrected as a retro design for a new drone. Although the craft without the canopy are much sleeker looking.

Wait.

Operation “Option?”

Finally, after all these years. A reason for why the glowing drones in Gradius are called “options.”

Why did the Pentagon deny any knowledge of this aircraft if there’s one on display in a museum?

How on earth are these not better known?!
This is brand-new to me! TIL
Thank you so much for this enlightening - no, revelatory - video, Rex, you total legend.
Hope your Covid recovery is going well.

I have modern drones that cannot hit 30 miles video .. insanity for the 1940s

Imagine if we'd pushed harder on this tech and by Korea we'd been doing all of our strike packages with drones. Then by Vietnam, next to zero pilots in harm's way. :/

An unmanned kamikaze is called a drone einstein

Are these The Same Admirals and Generals that Blocked The Development of Air Combat (Bombing Battle Ships with Aircraft) Prior to WW2 To the Point of Court Martial and Dismissal of a Certain General, with Their Bias and Lack of Imagination, "Life is Cheap" What Chance would "Pilotless Aircraft" Have ? They Have been Fighting that till Last Year? Aircraft need Pilots

So BF5 and COD Vanguard could have drone strikes

We know our drones here in America it must be said.

Absolutely insane how unknown this is nowadays

Amazing....

Ohh if they could just see the drones today.

Very nice.

3.30 is a Culver

Excellent snooping out of unknown projects. There is a possible video of the world's first smart bomb developed in WWll by B.F. Skinner later a famous Behaviorist who wrote the controversial and prescient Beyond Freedom and Dignity. I saw him speak to a packed audience in a large auditorium. He was quite funny, charismatic, and thought way "way out of the box."

I just saw a cruise missile fly into a target, about 40 years before I thought that first happened.

Maaaaate, you’ve achieved a SCOOP!

WW2 version of DJI fpv drone I guess.

Literally this last Saturday I saw that hanging from the ceiling and commented “WTF is that?!?” This video has been recommended to me for the last two weeks and I finally broke down and watched it. Thank you for solving the mystery for me

FWIW, I just shared this video to Twitter/TwiX/X/Whatever, under a user who is one of the Apollo Moon Landing Hoax Crowd, who claimed {among other things} that the technology to operate the video cameras on the Lunar Rovers remotely from Earth did not exist in the very late 1960s and early 1970s.

I know sharing FACTS about TECHNOLOGY is a fool's errand regarding people like that, but sometimes THEY push me over the edge.

In those days the technology needed to make the drones function well was not available yet. Today anybody can pilot a drone right from their own cellphone. We are living in those people's tomorrow. Amazing how someone had thought of this so long ago.

Grumman duck spotted

What's funny is that this was considered too slow at the time while the predator and reaper drones of today go about the same speed.

Amazing video thank you

Great vid. Had never heard of this before 😀

Scary how forward far thinking this tech was and how today especially its showing such even more invovative drone use in combats about the world especially in ukraine's conflict with the russians

It was probably untrained, drug adicted saudis tho...

My wife's grandfather was assigned to STAG-1 working on this program.

Check out project Aphrodite in the ETO. The USAAF, and US Navy used radio controlled B-17s and B-24s loaded with explosives as guided bombs to try to take out V1 launch sites. Joseph Kennedy Jr. was killed during one of the tests.
Source: "Project Aphrodite: Desperate Mission" a book I read when I was in high school. I can't remember the author.

Fascinating look into early drone technology!

Quick, bury the channel. Otherwise Wehraboos are gonna lose it. America had drones, radio guided and TV guided drones and bombs on the books before the Fritz X?! HERESY! I can only wonder what they would think if they saw videos or read about one of the first American jet engine designes that were shelved for bomber programs that already had an afterburner in the 1930s.

Bureaucrat and pig headed generals were the ones that held back American designs. There seemed to be an answer to EVERY adversary design in the books 10 years before the enemy even thought about producing it. Its just that a bunch of idiots thought it was a waste of time. Tanks? We have good enough. Airplanes? Working just fine, focus on mass production instead of innovation. Engines? Good enough. And so on.

Jokes aside, I think the reason we see so many "wunderwaffe" from the Germans was not only out of desperation but from the fact that they were actually willing to put money and resources into forward thinking projects that other countries shelved in order to appeal to more antiquated minded people with stars on their collars.

America and Britain weren't behind on making new technology, they were just developing equipment for old men that were 10 years behind what technology could have been if money and resources were allocated. I can kind of understand where they were coming from during the time. The beginning of WW2 was following the end of the Great Depression. If the Great Depression hadn't happened, major powers probably would have had jets, drones, radar, rudimentary missiles, etc, before the conflict. In fact, it could have even stopped the whole affair.

There are parts of a TDR-1 at Taylor Airport in DeKalb, Illinois, the intention is to eventually build a complete display aircraft. DeKalb is where the factory was located, chosen because of the local Wurlitzer factory's expertise in production woodworking.

Parts of the old factory still stand as well; it's last use was a motor factory for GE Appliances. The buildings are currently empty and up for sale.

Just a bit of trivia : the TDR-1 steel frame was built by Schwinn bicycles.
For unrelated (?) reasons, some Frenchmen (the senior ones, like me :( still call their bicycle a "Spad".

Fascinating how the Predator was presaged by 50 years! Imagine how subsequent wars would have changed if the program received funding and development beyond 1944

Wow! Who knew?

Was this further along than the FRITZ-X?

Wow ....just wow.

With a fat smirk in their face they gave them some 'useless' flat 6 Lycoming engines. Funny that. Never realizing that they had one seriously good engine in their hands. In fact, one that will and has survived to this day, 2024. Cyclones and Wasps have come and gone but the flat 6 Lycoming is still here and still a very good engine.

It took 2 hours to record 17 minutes of audio, curse you long-covid.
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