Ryan, I would recommend contacting the nearest active EAA chapter about making a fiberglass dome replica for you. Most kitplane builders end up getting at least a little bit of experience dealing with fiberglass. Some get quite a bit more depending on what they build. I doubt it would be anywhere near $10,000 to make one. More closer to $1,000 max in parts. Getting it up to where it's supposed to be would be a different matter, though. If they're really into it they may even make an RQ-2 Pioneer mock up for you. Those things are made of fiberglass and aluminum tubes, anyway.
Hmm I wonder if AAI has an mockup or inoperable Pioneer we could talk them into gifting to the USS New Jersey museum. Unfortunately I recently chucked one of the AAI manager business cards from my interview with them in 2014.
I could probably make for a decent price but based on a quick estimate the cost of shipping from southern ca to New Jersey may be the around the same price as the build
You Realize Radio Controlled Drones are since ww2 right? 1935 - The First Modern Drone is Developed In response, the De Havilland DH. 82B Queen Bee aircraft was used a low-cost radio-controlled drone developed for aerial target practice. It is considered by many to be the first modern drone.
@@MRL676 That is interesting. I used to know a man who was in the RN for WW2 and he asked me what I thought would be the minimum instructions necessary to send to a model aircraft. Whether this was because he had seen glide bombs coming in or not I don't know but I suggested one signal from the elevators and another to the rudder. In each case the presence of a signal would cause a pull (up/left) but no signal would allow a spring to pull in the other direction. He didn't say anything.
Missouri is looking to be in fine shape. She is the only " Iowa" that I have not visited and it is great to see this great ship up close in your video's. As to the use of drones on the battleships I believe they proved their worth in Operation Desert Storm. I will always remember the Iraq Army forces surrendering to the Wisconsin's drone on live T.V..
The RQ-2 Pioneer drone was jointly by Israeli firm IAI and AAI in Cockeysville MD up I-83 2 exits outside the Baltimore Beltway. I thought I recognized the recovery concept. The RQ-2 morphed into the RQ-7 Shadow built by AAI. In 2014 as a contractor I designed and wrote a new Return Home navigation feature that used DTED data to determine if a pathway was safe for the Shadow (RQ-7A) to use. Not a big deal for Battleship use of this drone but by the time I wrote this software the Army had crashed 13 Shadows into hills ( mountains really) mostly in and around Afghanistan. Yeah Maryland.
I tested and evaluated the Pioneer on the IOWA as a LT for OPTEVFORPAC. The CIA bought these from Israel, calling it the "Gnat". They crashed a couple and gave em to us. Original testing was at Ft. Juachuca, then Iowa. Guidance was pre-programmed, so bad guys couldn't find the mom ship. You just hoped it would find the target area. Take-off/landing was guided with conical-scan C-band. The net was on the fantail. Worked great in Desert Storm. Tactics were developed by myself and LT Lee White, while 💩-faced, at Blue Pete's Bar in Pungo, Virginia, Thats the deal.
the drones were absolutely a worthy modification. Radio controlled recon aircraft had been experimented with since the early 1930's. While not as reliable or capable as the current drones, the drones of the 1980's were a valuable asset, and reduced the risk to personnel.
The RQ-2 certainly proved its worth in the gulf war. There were a lot of Republican Guard positions in eastern Kuwait that wound up going away not long after being spotted by one of those birds. I believe there was even one recorded instance of Iraqi troops surrendering to a RQ-2 Pioneer.
It was a steerable nose wheel when operating from land/runways. The Pioneer's nose wheel servo was mechanically disconnected at sea so it could be maneuvered by hand like a shopping cart. Also, the Pioneer was the only aircraft in the Navy that removed its tail hook when it went to sea and put it back for use on land.
"...like Iwo Jima..." It's funny how something that sounds *totally* non sequitur to a normal person, makes 100% perfect sense to us WW2 Pacific Campaign nerds who probably saw that flag raising picture before we knew how to multiply and divide numbers. 😸😸😸😸😸😸😸
I remember hearing somewhere that there was at least one instance where one of the Iowa's were starting a shore-bombardment mission, and when the crew of the coastal battery they were about to bombard noticed the drone, they understood what it was there for and actually surrendered to it and waited to be picked up by a ship.
It's true. I worked for the company that made the Pioneer RPV, and have seen the footage of Iraqi troops "surrendering" to the aircraft. It didn't take them long to figure out that soon after the drone showed up bad things were going to happen.
The MQM-105 Aquila of the 1970s also "ran into a volleyball net" to be covered but they had a blade shroud... losing the shroud and just being willing to swap out props sounds odd, but it saves weight and drag on the airframe.
Have you talked about the Iowas in fictional stories and what is your favourite? The one book I can think of is Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising . One of the Iowas was shelling Soviet positions on Iceland. He describes how the drone was used to find targets.
In a book of fiction (Series of books) titled Wingman, (futuristic books) an Iowa Class BB "s drone ops & recovery is described in surprisingly good detail and the shelling of enemy positions & Infantry.
As the Iowa class ships were taken out of service, some of the Austin-class amphibious transport dock ships were modified for Pioneer operations. The Pioneer continued service both ashore and at sea until the mid-2000s.
And Denver Class LPDs. Specifically, the Denver, Shreveport, Austin and I think one other had the Pioneer system. I operated off the Shreveport and Denver.
The origins of drones on USN ships traces back to WWII and at least the Battleship Texas. January 3-5 1945, off Hawaii the ships war diary records drone flights off the catapult atop turret 3. I have a photo of the drone on my BB35 website
While I don't tend to think of battleships and drones together. I think it's important to talk about their link to one another. Since the Black Dragon did at one time carry and work with drones, I think it's a story worth telling and if possible have a physical representative of both sides.
Ryan, great video. I flew the Pioneer for 8 years off of the LPDs. I have an official Navy binder of a bunch of photos of the installation of the Pioneer system on a battleship. I also have some Pioneer manuals. Maybe some copies would benefit you. The Pioneer in your video is not one that would have flown off a battleship because it is an Option II+, which didn't come out until around 96' or 97'. The battleships would have had the Option I and Option II, both having a narrower fuselage and the Option I had a narrower tail than the others. I heard all of the remaining Pioneers ended up at NAS China Lake and were to be converted to targets. :( I am about to start a build of a smaller scale Pioneer that will be a flying R/C model. The short kit arrives tomorrow. It will likely take a year or more to build, but there's worse things I could spend my money on. Several people asked and referred to Iraqi's surrendering to a Pioneer in Desert Storm. The History Channel shows this happening in a video in a Desert Storm documentary and I'll put a link to it, below. The Iraqi's learned quickly that the noisy 2-stroke engine orbiting overhead meant bad news, so they surrendered. But what the History Channel doesn't mention is that after the Pioneer left the area, some Iraqi's were seen going back to their positions, picking up their weapons and waiting for the allied ground troops to arrive. This brought up the question of whether surrendering to a UAV was a legal surrender or not. Video of Iraqi's surrendering to a Pioneer UAV th-cam.com/video/qE42jDFBlWE/w-d-xo.html
Great video, Ryan, as always! Quick questions: what's the diameter of the dome and/or the actual dish? I am trying to work out in which RF bands the drone comms operated. I was guessing VHF, band I or band II, but that might have made dish design tricky. It's an interesting question, because getting good video returned reliably from the full range of the 16" guns would be pushing it somewhat. I am also assuming those dishes were receiving antennas, not transmit, so they might have operated in a higher band altogether, to get sufficient bandwidth for multiple video feeds back to the ship. Do you know if there was a separate transmit antenna for drone control? That wouldn’t need anything like as much bandwidth, so could just be a "loud" VHF transmitter on band I, ideally at the top of the superstructure. It looked like a test antenna was mounted on the model, but at main deck level. Did the drones dangle wire antennas, or use something else? Sorry - that was a third question! It's all quite fascinating though... :-)
The Pioneer used 2 uplinks for redundancy and 1 downlink. The uplinks were C-Band and UHF. The downlink was L-Band. I was a Pioneer pilot and payload operator for 8 years.
The Pioneer system was perfect for the Battleship's big guns. When the first (inert) round impacted, the payload operator would put the camera crosshairs on the intended target and use a lightpen to touch the screen at the point of impact. The system would immediately calculate "Add, Drop, Left, Right" (artillery speak) and feed it to the Battleship's fire control system. After correcting the aim, the next rounds would remove the target from the face of the planet.
As always interesting. You show briefly the inside of the analog computers. Are there more and longer videos of the inside working of the analog computer (mark 8)?
The technology was just coming into it's own and the fact that the Iowa's have it is great. I'm not really a drone person but if you have to have it then the bb is the first ship that deserves one
I would like you to talk about the yearly cost of maintaining a museum ship. I would also like you compare the yearly cost of the New Jersey to the other three Iowa battleships. Taken it a step further comparing the New Jersey cost to the US Midway in Dan Diego and the German submarine u-505 in Chicago.
@@BattleshipNewJersey There are non-operations but successful tests of drone aircraft and boats in WWI. There were planes of using the boats in late 1918 but non were used before the Armistice.
Question: How much would New Jersey's high top speed of 33 knots help her out in a naval engagement against an enemy battleship (specifically the Yamato). Edit: Sorry, I should have clarified I meant if New Jersey was sailing with a fleet that included slower North Carolina and South Dakota class battleships as what realistically would have happened. In case you're wondering, in a battle between enemy ships, there's a good chance that, while other ships are distracted, Yamato and New Jersey could get into a 1v1, as happened historically with too many naval battles to count.
Immensely, with the 5 knot speed advantage, we can dictate the terms of engagement, we can spot Yamato first, and either decide "Yes this is a favorable engagement for us" (because fair fights are for losers) or we can decide "We do not have enough firepower in the task force, we are going to withdraw and wait for back up and then push the attack" and that speed will keep us out of firing range and open up the distance between us and Yamato
After Taranto and sinking of Force Z, you avoid surface combat by attacking the enemy fleet via aircraft. In the Guadalcanal campaign, the night fighting among surface ships were ferocious and unpredictable, but the USS Washington proved how deadly radar directed fire can be while the electrical failure on USS South Dakota left it “blind and dumb” in the dark and fortunately didn’t get hit with a Lance torpedo. Kirishima was set afire in 5 minutes by Washington’s radar controlled fire while South Dakota couldn’t return fire with its radar unpowered.
@@KPen3750 I was thinking more along the lines of a realistic battle and not the typical "put two ships in a giant sand box and tell them one needs to sink the other" battle. In a realistic battle, New Jersey would have several slower ships preventing her from choosing a battle range, and even then, Yamato's not just going to blindly follow a running away New Jersey and would most likely be long gone by the time battle conditions become favorable for New Jersey. Furthermore, a higher top speed would not keep a ship out of a firing range. Battleships couldn't really hit anything accurately past 20,000 yards or so.
@@richardmillhousenixon Makes since, I guess. Thank you, although I think that battleships are not maneuverable enough to dodge enemy shells and swerve back into firing position.
I love your channel and I’m not sure if you have already done a video but do you have any thoughts about the night action against IJN Yamashiro and if so do you believe that it was wise to push her into front line service knowing that the US had radar capability. I know that you have done a video of the battle of the strait. Truthfully, I will need to get back to you on it, yet I originally meant to ask about the Kongo that fought “I believe the South Dakota”. Yet, I am blanking on the ship’s name. If I remember correctly it capsized a few hours after it broke off and exploded. (I looked it up and it was the Kirishima that I was trying to remember” it fought Dakota and the Washington)
My first thought when you mentioned the lack of a radar dome was to just get a gray weather balloon and fill it with air, but I'm sure there're issues with that idea
Drones started being used on US Navy ships in the Fifties. The DASH carried a torpedo for anti-submarine work. Good luck finding a drone or a mockup of a drone.
Joystick to land? It’s called the Copilot box. Lawnmower engine? It was originally a SACS 2 stroke crankcase scavenged 26 hp engine that started life as a snow mobile engine back in 1984/85. I would recommend if your going to do a video of the RQ-2A pioneer UAV you do a deeper dive before you verbally discount what it was.
Ryan, what is the diameter of the missing dome? And do you have a CONEX box or should I ask do you have two? One for the ‘hangar’ and one for ‘ops.’ Let me know … I might be able to point you in the direction of someone that can provide / donate the items. There are spare dome of various sizes and multi-purpose CONEX boxes available.
i knew that the US Navy and Marines used the RQ-2, I didn't know that the US Army also had an RQ-2 platoon for about 5 months in 1991. Sri Lanka was the only other user of the RQ-2.
It didn't work well for the Army because they gave the system to a vehicle maintenance unit. They repaired and operated the Pioneer like it was a truck. Results were predictable. The unit, out of Fort Huachuca, had an unofficial motto that was "We won't fly and you can't make us".
The RQ-2 Pioneer Is it true an Iraqis surrendered to one of these? I think the UK equal to this if the British Battleship Vanguard had survived to get a similar refit to Iowas although weight restrictions accounted for, would be the British Aerospace Phoenix
According to my tour guide when I visited USS Wisconsin (in 2019), a bunch of Iraqis surrendered to their drone and the Navy sent a SEAL team to take charge of the prisoners. The SEALs were told there were about 30 prisoners. The SEALs got there, called the Wisconsin back and said, "You guys need to learn to count, there's 300, not 30." 😑 They ended up calling the Army and asking for help (which my guide said the Navy REALLY didn't like doing), and the Army sent an MP brigade.
And Here is our proof when combined with the Battleships this drone technology was adequately mature. without this proof this drone and its operations was marginal (listen the the talk about annette.) (yes I know I have intentionally mangled the spelling)
The Pioneer was good for 5 hours, service ceiling was 9k', maximum altitude was 12k', datalink range was 100 Nautical Miles. Fun fact: to operate the Pioneer at a range of 100 miles, it had to be 9-10k' minimum to maintain the datalink over the curvature of the earth and by the time it got on station it had around 45 minutes of fuel before it had to return.
Two weeks from today I will be aboard the USS missouri. And visiting USS Arizona memorial. Does anybody know how would you visit the USS Utah memorial?
Fantastic work, Ryan! I think the drones were an interesting experiment, but I don't believe that the Iowas should have been reactivated at all. 1) Using airpower would have been cheaper, more flexible, and more effective. We knew this by 1945. 2) I'm assuming a LOT of WW2 history got erased in the upgrade process. They should have been left alone as beautiful relics of a bygone past.
1.) You can't use a CIWS or AA mount to shoot down a 16" HE shell. 2.) Each HE shell was basically a ~150lb-200lb bomb. 3.) There were thousands of HE shells already in inventory paid for years ago and facing either deployment or disposal. 4.) A stat fire mission is quick and easy compared to deploying an aircraft. Call sailors to quarters, load the gun, get a firing solution, shoot, and the shells arrive in under 3-4 minutes. Can't get an aircraft there in that time, unless it's already in the air. Missiles can be quicker, but they are wayyyyy more expensive. 5.) The 5" secondaries were basically like having an artillery howitzer division ready to go at all times. Land-based artillery has to "shoot and scoot" because counterbattery fire will destroy the guns. Not a battleship. 16" or 5" guns, both could be used depending on target and task. 6.) For further or bigger things, there were always TLAMs which could be fired instantly and cruise farrrrrrrr away to the target much faster than a plane could. 7.) A plane requires 1 or 2 pilots going over enemy territory and risking a shoot down which results in POWs or KIAs. 16" HE shells don't need a pilot and losing men on the ships was very very unlikely. 8.) A large majority of the world population lives near coastline. So, having some heavily armed and armored ships that can sail up to that coastline and fire with practical invincibility hundreds of 150-200lb bombs (which can't be shot down) 20+ miles inland at those targets is very attractive. Put a bunch of sensors on that ship and it becomes even more valuable to the strike group. This was a "use it or lose it" situation and they were perfectly fine ships which we had ammo for rusting away in the warehouse that was going to be blown up by EOD if it wasn't fired at hostiles as it oughta be.
@@mannys9130 1) How many bombs and missiles got shot down by the Iraqis? Zero? Close to zero? You can saturate air defenses pretty easily with an aircraft strike group packing standoff weapons. Heck they had Apaches ambushing SAM sites. 2) 500, 1000, and 2000 lb bombs were in common service. 3) Sunk cost fallacy. Besides, the powder was so old, they were getting 1000-yard CEPs. 4) Land-based artillery is far cheaper per tube. How many can you buy for the $1.7B to upgrade the Iowas? The broadside weight of the Iowas is only 12 tons (for AP!). 5) They removed half the secondaries to make room for better weapons. 6) Strike airplanes are faster than TLAMs, although TLAMs are situationally useful. 7) Air Supremacy doctrine. How many planes and aircrew did we lose to enemy fire in the Gulf War? Barely any. For high-risk, fire a TLAM from anything. Missouri very nearly ate a Silkworm and had to be rescued by another ship. That would have been far worse than losing a few aircrew. 8) Too many eggs in one basket, and still not versatile enough. Iowas are not invincible. Belt armor is irrelevant vs modern anti-ship missiles. Active defense via anti-missile missiles is the only viable protection. Modern torpedoes are also a problem because they can detonate under the keel and not against the WW2 torpedo defense bulges. Naval gunfire support is dead. It's too niche and too vulnerable to dedicate entire ship classes to. It's the Maginot Line vs Blitzkrieg. NGS is about sustained bombardments at relatively close range--Modern warfare is about threat range and concentrating PGMs where they count.
The uplink commands were scrambled. The downlink video was clear UHF. The aircraft used a directional antenna and that was it's only deterrent from broadcasting the signal in all directions.
Looking at the way drones are being used in the war in Ukraine today, it feels like that the drones on the Iowa battleships was a solid idea, though maybe a bit too early for the technology of the day :)
I think the drones were effective. There were stories that the Iraqis in the gulf war would surrender the minute they saw one. Also, the recovery net is an old feature, it used to be part of the old straight deck carriers of the 1940s to keep pilots who missed the arrester gear from plowing through the aircraft park... And they were using one shot rocket assisted aircraft launchers off the decks of cargo ships about the same time, so apart from making it a drone, none of the tech is exactly new.
US used drones in Vietnam, Ryan Model 147 was use there starting in 1964. I would say that Operation Aphrodite and Anvil in WWII technically used drones too use in combat with remote-controlled heavy bombers filled with explosives and used again hardened targets. The controller was in a chaser aircraft. It did not work well and is likely most known for that John F. Kennedy older brother that was a pilot for on one of the modified bombers, the takeoff and initial flight over the UK was crewed. It exploded prematurely after they armed the warhead but before the planned bailout. UK made radio controller aircraft and notes during WWI but I do not believe they were used in combat. One intended usage was to attack Zeperlines, I assume by crashing into the. US developed the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane "aerial torpedo" which is a precursor to a cruise missile. US WWII "Project Fox" had TV cameras equipment and remote-controlled assault drones tested in 1942 was operationally used on a smaller scale in 1944 On Wikipedia the first drone example is Austrian incendiary balloons use in 1849 against Venice with the timed release of bombs, it did not work well. Some were launched from balloon carriers so the first offensive naval aviation usage.
Is the story about Iraqi insurgents surrendering to a Pioneer drone true? It goes that they had figured out, from prior experience, what the drone was spotting for, and they wanted none of it... so when they heard its engine, they came out waving. It's a great story and it comes with video, but...
Ten grand to make a fiberglass dome replica that isn’t operational? You could probably make them for a couple hundred bucks they don’t have to have any of the radar equipment in them and just a fiberglass dome that can be anchored securely to the ship I’m sure someone could figure out how to do that without having to get a crane to lift an empty fiberglass dome in place
I imaging when not deployed the drone crews would still need to train and it would make more sense to land conventionally as opposed to crashing into a net every time it landed. Wheels would also make moving it around the deck a little easier too.
It was built by Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI). But the U.S. can't buy military equipment from Israel. So a commercial 3rd party company, Pioneer UAV Inc. (PUI) was created to import the Pioneer and they sold it to American Aircraft Industries (AAI). AAI also provide one tech support person for all deployments.
I really hope someone gifts you a dome Ryan can see it hurts you don't have one. You really care, yoyr baby just happens to be thousands of tonnes in weight 😂 But then I'd be the same. I'd be wanting to take her out for a blast along the coast - I know it's against the rules. I'd do it then say she'd been stolen by some teenager on a dui 😂😂
Ryan, I would recommend contacting the nearest active EAA chapter about making a fiberglass dome replica for you. Most kitplane builders end up getting at least a little bit of experience dealing with fiberglass. Some get quite a bit more depending on what they build. I doubt it would be anywhere near $10,000 to make one. More closer to $1,000 max in parts. Getting it up to where it's supposed to be would be a different matter, though. If they're really into it they may even make an RQ-2 Pioneer mock up for you. Those things are made of fiberglass and aluminum tubes, anyway.
We need to buy him one, can you imagine his reaction 😅
EAA is based
Pioneer is made of balsa wood too. Haven't you seen inside?
Also the "dome" is a camera that's almost like a little r2d2 dangling from the bottom.
Do you have any connections with the group? We might try to do it secretly and surprise him with it.
When I was a kid my dad (served on NJ) snagged one of the propellor blades for my birthday.
We all collectively need to get Ryan his drone, hes doing an amazing job, and seeing the reaction on his face when he gets the drone will be epic
I heard there is a guy copying the old drones. Ayatollah somebody...
Hmm I wonder if AAI has an mockup or inoperable Pioneer we could talk them into gifting to the USS New Jersey museum. Unfortunately I recently chucked one of the AAI manager business cards from my interview with them in 2014.
I could probably make for a decent price but based on a quick estimate the cost of shipping from southern ca to New Jersey may be the around the same price as the build
I think the drones were a glimpse of the future... on the navy's oldest platforms.
You Realize Radio Controlled Drones are since ww2 right? 1935 - The First Modern Drone is Developed
In response, the De Havilland DH. 82B Queen Bee aircraft was used a low-cost radio-controlled drone developed for aerial target practice. It is considered by many to be the first modern drone.
And it could pass for a Flying Saucer.
@@MRL676 That is interesting. I used to know a man who was in the RN for WW2 and he asked me what I thought would be the minimum instructions necessary to send to a model aircraft.
Whether this was because he had seen glide bombs coming in or not I don't know but I suggested one signal from the elevators and another to the rudder. In each case the presence of a signal would cause a pull (up/left) but no signal would allow a spring to pull in the other direction. He didn't say anything.
Missouri is looking to be in fine shape. She is the only " Iowa" that I have not visited and it is great to see this great ship up close in your video's. As to the use of drones on the battleships I believe they proved their worth in Operation Desert Storm. I will always remember the Iraq Army forces surrendering to the Wisconsin's drone on live T.V..
I’m trying to find an excuse to go to Hawaii now… 😅
They billed it as the only army to surrender to a battleship. Or something like that
dude the amount of knowledge you have is insane!! this is a true passion of yours
That 1/48th-scale brass model (1/4" to the foot) was neat! There are many artifacts like that but display space is limited.
The RQ-2 Pioneer drone was jointly by Israeli firm IAI and AAI in Cockeysville MD up I-83 2 exits outside the Baltimore Beltway. I thought I recognized the recovery concept. The RQ-2 morphed into the RQ-7 Shadow built by AAI. In 2014 as a contractor I designed and wrote a new Return Home navigation feature that used DTED data to determine if a pathway was safe for the Shadow (RQ-7A) to use. Not a big deal for Battleship use of this drone but by the time I wrote this software the Army had crashed 13 Shadows into hills ( mountains really) mostly in and around Afghanistan. Yeah Maryland.
I tested and evaluated the Pioneer on the IOWA as a LT for OPTEVFORPAC. The CIA bought these from Israel, calling it the "Gnat". They crashed a couple and gave em to us. Original testing was at Ft. Juachuca, then Iowa. Guidance was pre-programmed, so bad guys couldn't find the mom ship. You just hoped it would find the target area. Take-off/landing was guided with conical-scan C-band. The net was on the fantail. Worked great in Desert Storm. Tactics were developed by myself and LT Lee White, while 💩-faced, at Blue Pete's Bar in Pungo, Virginia, Thats the deal.
the drones were absolutely a worthy modification. Radio controlled recon aircraft had been experimented with since the early 1930's. While not as reliable or capable as the current drones, the drones of the 1980's were a valuable asset, and reduced the risk to personnel.
The RQ-2 certainly proved its worth in the gulf war. There were a lot of Republican Guard positions in eastern Kuwait that wound up going away not long after being spotted by one of those birds.
I believe there was even one recorded instance of Iraqi troops surrendering to a RQ-2 Pioneer.
American Veterans Association YT recently posted an interview of BB NJ AA gunner... Ty for your content and work on BB NJ!
Have you done a video about the differences between the antennas and superstructure of the 4 sisters? Could be an interesting subject if not.
I was confused by the caster wheel on the nose but it was only used for wheeling around the deck so it makes sense.
It was a steerable nose wheel when operating from land/runways. The Pioneer's nose wheel servo was mechanically disconnected at sea so it could be maneuvered by hand like a shopping cart. Also, the Pioneer was the only aircraft in the Navy that removed its tail hook when it went to sea and put it back for use on land.
"...like Iwo Jima..."
It's funny how something that sounds *totally* non sequitur to a normal person, makes 100% perfect sense to us WW2 Pacific Campaign nerds who probably saw that flag raising picture before we knew how to multiply and divide numbers. 😸😸😸😸😸😸😸
There is another brass model of the Missouri used for antenna testing in the state of Missouri capital building in Jefferson City.
drones were a cutting edge application
I remember hearing somewhere that there was at least one instance where one of the Iowa's were starting a shore-bombardment mission, and when the crew of the coastal battery they were about to bombard noticed the drone, they understood what it was there for and actually surrendered to it and waited to be picked up by a ship.
It's true. I worked for the company that made the Pioneer RPV, and have seen the footage of Iraqi troops "surrendering" to the aircraft. It didn't take them long to figure out that soon after the drone showed up bad things were going to happen.
The MQM-105 Aquila of the 1970s also "ran into a volleyball net" to be covered but they had a blade shroud... losing the shroud and just being willing to swap out props sounds odd, but it saves weight and drag on the airframe.
When I was in the army, I got to play thermal target for the Pioneer drone. The lads from Thorn EMI were great to work with.
Have you talked about the Iowas in fictional stories and what is your favourite?
The one book I can think of is Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising . One of the Iowas was shelling Soviet positions on Iceland. He describes how the drone was used to find targets.
Clancy also described a radar system the Iowa's never had in that scene.
In a book of fiction (Series of books) titled Wingman, (futuristic books) an Iowa Class BB "s drone ops & recovery is described in surprisingly good detail and the shelling of enemy positions & Infantry.
Any good ones to read?
As the Iowa class ships were taken out of service, some of the Austin-class amphibious transport dock ships were modified for Pioneer operations. The Pioneer continued service both ashore and at sea until the mid-2000s.
And Denver Class LPDs. Specifically, the Denver, Shreveport, Austin and I think one other had the Pioneer system. I operated off the Shreveport and Denver.
The origins of drones on USN ships traces back to WWII and at least the Battleship Texas. January 3-5 1945, off Hawaii the ships war diary records drone flights off the catapult atop turret 3. I have a photo of the drone on my BB35 website
While I don't tend to think of battleships and drones together. I think it's important to talk about their link to one another. Since the Black Dragon did at one time carry and work with drones, I think it's a story worth telling and if possible have a physical representative of both sides.
Ryan, great video. I flew the Pioneer for 8 years off of the LPDs. I have an official Navy binder of a bunch of photos of the installation of the Pioneer system on a battleship. I also have some Pioneer manuals. Maybe some copies would benefit you. The Pioneer in your video is not one that would have flown off a battleship because it is an Option II+, which didn't come out until around 96' or 97'. The battleships would have had the Option I and Option II, both having a narrower fuselage and the Option I had a narrower tail than the others. I heard all of the remaining Pioneers ended up at NAS China Lake and were to be converted to targets. :(
I am about to start a build of a smaller scale Pioneer that will be a flying R/C model. The short kit arrives tomorrow. It will likely take a year or more to build, but there's worse things I could spend my money on.
Several people asked and referred to Iraqi's surrendering to a Pioneer in Desert Storm. The History Channel shows this happening in a video in a Desert Storm documentary and I'll put a link to it, below. The Iraqi's learned quickly that the noisy 2-stroke engine orbiting overhead meant bad news, so they surrendered. But what the History Channel doesn't mention is that after the Pioneer left the area, some Iraqi's were seen going back to their positions, picking up their weapons and waiting for the allied ground troops to arrive. This brought up the question of whether surrendering to a UAV was a legal surrender or not.
Video of Iraqi's surrendering to a Pioneer UAV th-cam.com/video/qE42jDFBlWE/w-d-xo.html
Great video, Ryan, as always!
Quick questions: what's the diameter of the dome and/or the actual dish? I am trying to work out in which RF bands the drone comms operated. I was guessing VHF, band I or band II, but that might have made dish design tricky. It's an interesting question, because getting good video returned reliably from the full range of the 16" guns would be pushing it somewhat. I am also assuming those dishes were receiving antennas, not transmit, so they might have operated in a higher band altogether, to get sufficient bandwidth for multiple video feeds back to the ship.
Do you know if there was a separate transmit antenna for drone control? That wouldn’t need anything like as much bandwidth, so could just be a "loud" VHF transmitter on band I, ideally at the top of the superstructure. It looked like a test antenna was mounted on the model, but at main deck level.
Did the drones dangle wire antennas, or use something else? Sorry - that was a third question!
It's all quite fascinating though... :-)
The Pioneer used 2 uplinks for redundancy and 1 downlink. The uplinks were C-Band and UHF. The downlink was L-Band. I was a Pioneer pilot and payload operator for 8 years.
The all mighty spotter drone coming to rain down 16in shells to a place near you!
The Pioneer system was perfect for the Battleship's big guns. When the first (inert) round impacted, the payload operator would put the camera crosshairs on the intended target and use a lightpen to touch the screen at the point of impact. The system would immediately calculate "Add, Drop, Left, Right" (artillery speak) and feed it to the Battleship's fire control system. After correcting the aim, the next rounds would remove the target from the face of the planet.
Informative. Thanks!
As always interesting. You show briefly the inside of the analog computers. Are there more and longer videos of the inside working of the analog computer (mark 8)?
The technology was just coming into it's own and the fact that the Iowa's have it is great. I'm not really a drone person but if you have to have it then the bb is the first ship that deserves one
I would like you to talk about the yearly cost of maintaining a museum ship. I would also like you compare the yearly cost of the New Jersey to the other three Iowa battleships. Taken it a step further comparing the New Jersey cost to the US Midway in Dan Diego and the German submarine u-505 in Chicago.
The burning question after this video. Where is New Jersey's model!
Wow! I had no idea they had drones in the 80s! I’d swear drones are a very recent thing 😮
Drones date back to WWII in fact
There was a famous incident where some Iraqi soldiers surrendered to the drone in the early 90's.
@@BattleshipNewJersey There are non-operations but successful tests of drone aircraft and boats in WWI. There were planes of using the boats in late 1918 but non were used before the Armistice.
Of the 4 Iowas, which one had the least amount of modifications to it’s interior spaces and is closest to original layout?
Question: How much would New Jersey's high top speed of 33 knots help her out in a naval engagement against an enemy battleship (specifically the Yamato).
Edit: Sorry, I should have clarified I meant if New Jersey was sailing with a fleet that included slower North Carolina and South Dakota class battleships as what realistically would have happened. In case you're wondering, in a battle between enemy ships, there's a good chance that, while other ships are distracted, Yamato and New Jersey could get into a 1v1, as happened historically with too many naval battles to count.
Immensely, with the 5 knot speed advantage, we can dictate the terms of engagement, we can spot Yamato first, and either decide "Yes this is a favorable engagement for us" (because fair fights are for losers) or we can decide "We do not have enough firepower in the task force, we are going to withdraw and wait for back up and then push the attack" and that speed will keep us out of firing range and open up the distance between us and Yamato
Speed let's you engage and disengage at will, as well as perform more effective maneuvers to throw off the enemies shot
After Taranto and sinking of Force Z, you avoid surface combat by attacking the enemy fleet via aircraft. In the Guadalcanal campaign, the night fighting among surface ships were ferocious and unpredictable, but the USS Washington proved how deadly radar directed fire can be while the electrical failure on USS South Dakota left it “blind and dumb” in the dark and fortunately didn’t get hit with a Lance torpedo. Kirishima was set afire in 5 minutes by Washington’s radar controlled fire while South Dakota couldn’t return fire with its radar unpowered.
@@KPen3750 I was thinking more along the lines of a realistic battle and not the typical "put two ships in a giant sand box and tell them one needs to sink the other" battle. In a realistic battle, New Jersey would have several slower ships preventing her from choosing a battle range, and even then, Yamato's not just going to blindly follow a running away New Jersey and would most likely be long gone by the time battle conditions become favorable for New Jersey. Furthermore, a higher top speed would not keep a ship out of a firing range. Battleships couldn't really hit anything accurately past 20,000 yards or so.
@@richardmillhousenixon Makes since, I guess. Thank you, although I think that battleships are not maneuverable enough to dodge enemy shells and swerve back into firing position.
Ryan, could you do a short video about coordinating with another Iowa curator?
I love your channel and I’m not sure if you have already done a video but do you have any thoughts about the night action against IJN Yamashiro and if so do you believe that it was wise to push her into front line service knowing that the US had radar capability. I know that you have done a video of the battle of the strait. Truthfully, I will need to get back to you on it, yet I originally meant to ask about the Kongo that fought “I believe the South Dakota”. Yet, I am blanking on the ship’s name. If I remember correctly it capsized a few hours after it broke off and exploded. (I looked it up and it was the Kirishima that I was trying to remember” it fought Dakota and the Washington)
When were u at the Missouri? We were there on Wednesday
Film projection booth? Did the Iowas have an outdoor movie theater?
I would not blink if they had several😂
My first thought when you mentioned the lack of a radar dome was to just get a gray weather balloon and fill it with air, but I'm sure there're issues with that idea
Ryan have you ever seen the movie series called Victory at Sea? Agreeing with you about Battleship I was curious it's a documentary about WW2
109? Wow, that is a lot of places
Drones started being used on US Navy ships in the Fifties. The DASH carried a torpedo for anti-submarine work.
Good luck finding a drone or a mockup of a drone.
Getting a reproduction drone should be a project some Radion controlled aircraft club would love to jump on.
Did you say there was a film projection booth by turret 3? What for?
Sorry, where is the link to the video of the RATO magazine?
A former co worker worked on drones while he was in the Air force in 1960's
Nowadays the Navy would be using the MQ-8 Fire Scout drone, which operates like a helicopter.
Joystick to land? It’s called the Copilot box. Lawnmower engine? It was originally a SACS 2 stroke crankcase scavenged 26 hp engine that started life as a snow mobile engine back in 1984/85. I would recommend if your going to do a video of the RQ-2A pioneer UAV you do a deeper dive before you verbally discount what it was.
11:40 Now Im interested in 16" guided shells! Why make Zumwalt class for shore bombardment if you have 16" guns on your decks already? 😂
dude-Love it ,best masterpiece-all the best~
Which Iowa class battleship would you say is the most unique? The one that’s the most different from the others.
Ryan, what is the diameter of the missing dome? And do you have a CONEX box or should I ask do you have two? One for the ‘hangar’ and one for ‘ops.’ Let me know … I might be able to point you in the direction of someone that can provide / donate the items. There are spare dome of various sizes and multi-purpose CONEX boxes available.
Concerning the drone technology you gotta start somewhere.
Link to the RATO magazine vid?
i knew that the US Navy and Marines used the RQ-2, I didn't know that the US Army also had an RQ-2 platoon for about 5 months in 1991. Sri Lanka was the only other user of the RQ-2.
It didn't work well for the Army because they gave the system to a vehicle maintenance unit. They repaired and operated the Pioneer like it was a truck. Results were predictable. The unit, out of Fort Huachuca, had an unofficial motto that was "We won't fly and you can't make us".
The RQ-2 Pioneer
Is it true an Iraqis surrendered to one of these?
I think the UK equal to this if the British Battleship Vanguard had survived to get a similar refit to Iowas although weight restrictions accounted for, would be the British Aerospace Phoenix
According to my tour guide when I visited USS Wisconsin (in 2019), a bunch of Iraqis surrendered to their drone and the Navy sent a SEAL team to take charge of the prisoners. The SEALs were told there were about 30 prisoners. The SEALs got there, called the Wisconsin back and said, "You guys need to learn to count, there's 300, not 30." 😑 They ended up calling the Army and asking for help (which my guide said the Navy REALLY didn't like doing), and the Army sent an MP brigade.
And Here is our proof when combined with the Battleships this drone technology was adequately mature. without this proof this drone and its operations was marginal (listen the the talk about annette.) (yes I know I have intentionally mangled the spelling)
What were the range and altitude capabilities of the drones?
The Pioneer was good for 5 hours, service ceiling was 9k', maximum altitude was 12k', datalink range was 100 Nautical Miles. Fun fact: to operate the Pioneer at a range of 100 miles, it had to be 9-10k' minimum to maintain the datalink over the curvature of the earth and by the time it got on station it had around 45 minutes of fuel before it had to return.
@@TheJohnorama Thanks!
Two weeks from today I will be aboard the USS missouri. And visiting USS Arizona memorial. Does anybody know how would you visit the USS Utah memorial?
Yeah the UAVs were gonna be needed to help with gunnery spotting
Extended Range 16" munitions, what do we know about this proposed idea?
Huh didn’t anticipate the pioneer drone to be that big
If one were to be reactivated, which one would it be?
ive heard there is a dent from 12" Japanese shore battery on the starboard side upper part of turret two, has anyone seen it?
OK honest question... would an analog ship like an old school battle ship be viable in an EMP attack?
military electronics are EMP certed
Did the Pioneer drone float?
Nope. I've watched a few sink.
Fantastic work, Ryan! I think the drones were an interesting experiment, but I don't believe that the Iowas should have been reactivated at all. 1) Using airpower would have been cheaper, more flexible, and more effective. We knew this by 1945. 2) I'm assuming a LOT of WW2 history got erased in the upgrade process. They should have been left alone as beautiful relics of a bygone past.
1.) You can't use a CIWS or AA mount to shoot down a 16" HE shell.
2.) Each HE shell was basically a ~150lb-200lb bomb.
3.) There were thousands of HE shells already in inventory paid for years ago and facing either deployment or disposal.
4.) A stat fire mission is quick and easy compared to deploying an aircraft. Call sailors to quarters, load the gun, get a firing solution, shoot, and the shells arrive in under 3-4 minutes. Can't get an aircraft there in that time, unless it's already in the air. Missiles can be quicker, but they are wayyyyy more expensive.
5.) The 5" secondaries were basically like having an artillery howitzer division ready to go at all times. Land-based artillery has to "shoot and scoot" because counterbattery fire will destroy the guns. Not a battleship. 16" or 5" guns, both could be used depending on target and task.
6.) For further or bigger things, there were always TLAMs which could be fired instantly and cruise farrrrrrrr away to the target much faster than a plane could.
7.) A plane requires 1 or 2 pilots going over enemy territory and risking a shoot down which results in POWs or KIAs. 16" HE shells don't need a pilot and losing men on the ships was very very unlikely.
8.) A large majority of the world population lives near coastline. So, having some heavily armed and armored ships that can sail up to that coastline and fire with practical invincibility hundreds of 150-200lb bombs (which can't be shot down) 20+ miles inland at those targets is very attractive. Put a bunch of sensors on that ship and it becomes even more valuable to the strike group.
This was a "use it or lose it" situation and they were perfectly fine ships which we had ammo for rusting away in the warehouse that was going to be blown up by EOD if it wasn't fired at hostiles as it oughta be.
@@mannys9130 1) How many bombs and missiles got shot down by the Iraqis? Zero? Close to zero? You can saturate air defenses pretty easily with an aircraft strike group packing standoff weapons. Heck they had Apaches ambushing SAM sites.
2) 500, 1000, and 2000 lb bombs were in common service.
3) Sunk cost fallacy. Besides, the powder was so old, they were getting 1000-yard CEPs.
4) Land-based artillery is far cheaper per tube. How many can you buy for the $1.7B to upgrade the Iowas? The broadside weight of the Iowas is only 12 tons (for AP!).
5) They removed half the secondaries to make room for better weapons.
6) Strike airplanes are faster than TLAMs, although TLAMs are situationally useful.
7) Air Supremacy doctrine. How many planes and aircrew did we lose to enemy fire in the Gulf War? Barely any. For high-risk, fire a TLAM from anything. Missouri very nearly ate a Silkworm and had to be rescued by another ship. That would have been far worse than losing a few aircrew.
8) Too many eggs in one basket, and still not versatile enough. Iowas are not invincible. Belt armor is irrelevant vs modern anti-ship missiles. Active defense via anti-missile missiles is the only viable protection. Modern torpedoes are also a problem because they can detonate under the keel and not against the WW2 torpedo defense bulges.
Naval gunfire support is dead. It's too niche and too vulnerable to dedicate entire ship classes to. It's the Maginot Line vs Blitzkrieg. NGS is about sustained bombardments at relatively close range--Modern warfare is about threat range and concentrating PGMs where they count.
Is it true that they just used an unscramble UHF analog signal for the TV and control signal?
The uplink commands were scrambled. The downlink video was clear UHF. The aircraft used a directional antenna and that was it's only deterrent from broadcasting the signal in all directions.
I was in VMU 2 and went on the last deployment ever in the pioneers history. Never knew they were on the BB's as well
Looking at the way drones are being used in the war in Ukraine today, it feels like that the drones on the Iowa battleships was a solid idea, though maybe a bit too early for the technology of the day :)
You put new hardware into it they could still be used, though a new drone designed around new tech is probably much better.
I think the drones were effective. There were stories that the Iraqis in the gulf war would surrender the minute they saw one.
Also, the recovery net is an old feature, it used to be part of the old straight deck carriers of the 1940s to keep pilots who missed the arrester gear from plowing through the aircraft park... And they were using one shot rocket assisted aircraft launchers off the decks of cargo ships about the same time, so apart from making it a drone, none of the tech is exactly new.
Lucky you, hope u got some great food while at Hawaii
Love the shade thrown at the armchair historians 😂
I think the drones would have been useful in Korea and Vietnam even if they weren't possible then. By the 1970's they were doable.
US used drones in Vietnam, Ryan Model 147 was use there starting in 1964.
I would say that Operation Aphrodite and Anvil in WWII technically used drones too use in combat with remote-controlled heavy bombers filled with explosives and used again hardened targets. The controller was in a chaser aircraft. It did not work well and is likely most known for that John F. Kennedy older brother that was a pilot for on one of the modified bombers, the takeoff and initial flight over the UK was crewed. It exploded prematurely after they armed the warhead but before the planned bailout.
UK made radio controller aircraft and notes during WWI but I do not believe they were used in combat. One intended usage was to attack Zeperlines, I assume by crashing into the. US developed the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane "aerial torpedo" which is a precursor to a cruise missile. US WWII "Project Fox" had TV cameras equipment and remote-controlled assault drones tested in 1942 was operationally used on a smaller scale in 1944
On Wikipedia the first drone example is Austrian incendiary balloons use in 1849 against Venice with the timed release of bombs, it did not work well. Some were launched from balloon carriers so the first offensive naval aviation usage.
Navy landing, controlled crash no matter what winged aircraft.
There must be plenty youtube fiberglass hobbyists (I say that with the most respect!) who would love to make a dome for New Jersy right?!
Is the story about Iraqi insurgents surrendering to a Pioneer drone true? It goes that they had figured out, from prior experience, what the drone was spotting for, and they wanted none of it... so when they heard its engine, they came out waving. It's a great story and it comes with video, but...
Ten grand to make a fiberglass dome replica that isn’t operational? You could probably make them for a couple hundred bucks they don’t have to have any of the radar equipment in them and just a fiberglass dome that can be anchored securely to the ship I’m sure someone could figure out how to do that without having to get a crane to lift an empty fiberglass dome in place
BB = Bug in a Box
If the drone doesn't use a 'runway' for takeoff and landing, why does it have a normal wheeled undercarriage??
It can land on a runway.
I imaging when not deployed the drone crews would still need to train and it would make more sense to land conventionally as opposed to crashing into a net every time it landed. Wheels would also make moving it around the deck a little easier too.
Is that the same drone the Iraqis surrendered to in the gulf war?
Why pronounce it as ‘missoura’?
Yup. You need a drone.
I wouldn't bother wasting the money on a dome. The ship looks cleaner without it
Fun Fact: Pioneer Drone was brought from the Israel Military.
It was built by Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI). But the U.S. can't buy military equipment from Israel. So a commercial 3rd party company, Pioneer UAV Inc. (PUI) was created to import the Pioneer and they sold it to American Aircraft Industries (AAI). AAI also provide one tech support person for all deployments.
In New Joisey they say Missoura. (JK)
✌️
Well, considering that the drone pilots had to deal with Iraqis trying surrendering to them... I think they earned their worth.
I love how he is jealous of USS Missouri 😂😂😂
Looks like Missouri needs some refurbishment!!
12th, 7 October 2022
I really hope someone gifts you a dome Ryan can see it hurts you don't have one. You really care, yoyr baby just happens to be thousands of tonnes in weight 😂 But then I'd be the same. I'd be wanting to take her out for a blast along the coast - I know it's against the rules. I'd do it then say she'd been stolen by some teenager on a dui 😂😂
First the Kamikaze was the enemy. Now it's our spotter. How things change
I just wanted to confirm that you do not infact want anything to be permanently erect.
Stop calling missouri missoura
Common regional pronunciation.