Development Of Spy Planes

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Development Of Spy Planes

Development of Spy Aircraft
21 February 2000
Since the beginning of time there has always been conflict and inevitably war. Because of war, it is logical that enemies would seek out information about each other in order to increase their own chances of survival. Reconnaissance would be the proper terminology for gathering this information. There are many ways in which to gather reconnaissance, however I am going to talk about aerial reconnaissance and the use of spy aircraft as a method of acquiring important information. The first documented evidence of aerial reconnaissance was in 1794 when Captain J.M.J. used his captive balloon to observe his enemy at the Battle of Fleurus. The first documented use of airplane reconnaissance was in 1911, when Italian Captain Piazza spent an hour in his Blerot making notes on the Turkish positions between Azizia and Triopoli. The next year in 1912, this same pilot recorded the first aerial reconnaissance sortie using a camera. These first methods of reconnaissance were very cumbersome events because the cameras of those days would fill your entire lap. Because it greatly increased range of sight, it was extremely advantageous to observe from a higher elevation. For example, an average 6ft man can see approximately 3 miles, however, when put in an aircraft 65 feet above the earth’s surface, his horizon increase to 10 miles. Moreover, put him in an aircraft 35,000 ft above the earth’s surface and his horizon is no less than 230 miles. This paradigm shift in intelligence would lead to astounding innovations in aerial reconnaissance within this century.
The Great War (World War I) was basically a ground war, which consisted of bloody fighting throughout an immense system of interconnected trenches. Because of this, each side needed a reliable source of intelligence about each other’s movements At the beginning of the Great War aircraft had only been used as an effective fighting machine. After realizing that these high-flying aircraft could observe and bring back panoramic photographs of enemy fortifications and movements, each side began modifying aircraft to carry large cameras of the time. Most of the modifications were very simple, consisting of a hole cut in the bottom of the fuselage through which your back gunner could point and operate the camera. However, more often than not, the back gunner just basically manhandled this large robust camera into position when a target was sighted. In eit...

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