James Crossland is joined by aerospace historian and author Mark Piesing – author of N-4 Down: The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia – to explore the extraordinary life and legacy of British inventor and “father of drones” Archibald Low (1888–1956), from his early experiments with television to his pioneering work on the First World War’s Aerial Target – one of the first full-size radio-controlled aircraft. The episode traces the development of unmanned aircraft through the interwar years, the Second World War, Operation Crossroads and the Cold War, while examining why Low faded from the development of the technology he helped pioneer.
The conversation also asks what Low’s legacy means in the age of drone warfare, particularly after Ukraine’s use of cheap drones against Russian aircraft and air bases. James and Mark consider both sides of that legacy: drones can provide asymmetric military power and reduce risks to pilots, but remote warfare can also depersonalize conflict, make war easier to wage, and allow increasingly cheap weapons to be used against civilians and military targets alike.
Check out Mark’s work at: https://markpiesing.com/about/
Covered in this episode
- Archibald Low’s early life in Croydon: Born in 1888 to engineer John Low, young Archibald grew up around steam engines, shipping cranes, machinery and the Victorian engineering culture of his father’s workshop on the Thames.
- The technological world that shaped Low: The episode examines the arrival of the telephone, Marconi’s radio communications, powered vacuum cleaners, Willis Carrier’s air conditioning and the Wright brothers’ 1903 flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.
- Low the difficult inventor: His school years, experiments in his bedroom, disciplinary problems, studies at Central Technical College in South Kensington, and early engineering work reveal an intensely individualistic inventor who preferred teaching himself to following conventional rules.
- The inventions that anticipated the future: Low experimented with pre-selected gears, developed the Tele Vista as an early form of television, and later predicted technologies resembling mobile phones, fax machines, radio alarm clocks, automatic telephone redialling and portable music players.
- From television to radio-controlled weapons: After the outbreak of the First World War, Low joined the Royal Flying Corps/RAF and was directed toward military research, applying his television and radio-control ideas to unmanned aircraft.
- The Aerial Target of 1917: In March 1917, Low and a team of roughly 30 people produced the Aerial Target, a pilotless monoplane equipped with a radio receiver, gyroscopic controls and actuating gear, demonstrating that a full-size aircraft could be controlled remotely from the ground.
- The origins of drone warfare: The episode places Low in a much broader history of unmanned weapons, including Nikola Tesla’s 1898 radio-controlled torpedo boat, early radio-controlled airships, American inventor Charles Kettering’s Kettering Bug, and French experiments with pilotless aircraft.
- Drones between the world wars: After Low stepped away from military work, the Royal Aircraft Establishment continued developing radio-controlled aircraft, eventually producing the de Havilland Queen Bee for naval aerial gunnery practice, while American and French programmes explored increasingly sophisticated remotely controlled aircraft.
- Drones in the Second World War: The discussion covers radio-controlled aircraft, American drone programmes, the use of modified bombers as remotely controlled explosive weapons, the tragic death of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. during an experimental mission, and the development of drone technology for attacking heavily defended targets.
- Operation Crossroads and the nuclear age: At Bikini Atoll in 1946, remotely controlled Hellcats and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses were sent into nuclear mushroom clouds to collect scientific data, demonstrating a valuable role for drones in dangerous environments.
- Low's final years and predictions: Despite writing books such as It’s Bound to Happen and Electronics Everywhere, publishing Armchair Science and continuing to predict a technology-saturated future, Low became increasingly reclusive and died of lung cancer in 1956.
- The modern legacy of drone warfare: The episode connects Low's pioneering work to Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, Azerbaijan’s use of Turkish and Israeli drones against Armenia, and the wider ethical question of whether remote warfare makes armed conflict cheaper, easier and more likely.
Mentioned in this episode
Archibald Low, James Crossland, Mark Pising, John Lowe, Dominic Cummings, Bernard Montgomery, Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, Willis Carrier, Guillermo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, Charles Kettering, Lawrence Sperry, John Logie Baird, William Joyce, Lord Haw-Haw, Oswald Mosley, Reginald Denny, Marilyn Monroe, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Vladimir Putin, Osama bin Laden, History’s Devils, Aerial Target, father of drone warfare, radio guidance systems, radio-controlled weapons, drone warfare, unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, remotely piloted aircraft, mobile phones, television, Tele Vista, fax machines, radio alarm clocks, personal listening devices, Walkman, iPod, Armchair Science, Electronics Everywhere, Low Engineering Company, Royal Flying Corps, Royal Air Force, RAF, Royal Aircraft Establishment, Central Technical College, Croydon, London, River Thames, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, First World War, First World War aerial warfare, Second World War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Crimean War, Franco-Prussian War, Korean War, Battle of Midway, Operation Crossroads, Bikini Atoll, Operation Spiderweb, Tower 22 attack, Azerbaijan-Armenia war, Iranian-backed militia drone attack, First Blitz, Zeppelin raids, U-boats, U-boat bases, Western Front, German aircraft, V-weapons, V-1, V-2, Wasserfall, Me 262, Kettering Bug, de Havilland Queen Bee, Grumman Avenger, Flying Fortress, Liberator, Hellcat, radio-controlled airships, kamikaze drones, attack drones, drone swarms, cluster munitions, butterfly bomb, asymmetrical warfare, deterrence, hybrid warfare, hybrid navy, USVs, UAVs, saturation warfare, remote warfare, depersonalization of warfare, videogame warfare, artificial intelligence, AI, technological forecasting, futurism, military innovation, Revolution in Military Affairs, weapons innovation, autonomous warfare, drone ethics, technology and society, cheap weapons, technological accessibility, the future of war, the ethics of remote warfare, do drones make war easier to fight
Chapters
00:00 — Archibald Low: The Father of Drone Warfare
How a British inventor predicted mobile phones, television, remote warfare and other technologies of the future.
02:18 — Archibald Low: the Super Forecaster
Why Low’s 1920s predictions about technology were decades ahead of their time—and where his forecasting had limits.
04:40 — Low’s Childhood in Victorian Croydon
Growing up around his engineer father John Low’s machinery, steam engines and shipping cranes on the Thames.
06:03 — The Wright Brothers and the Birth of Low’s Drone Vision
How Wilbur and Orville Wright’s 1903 flight at Kill Devil Hills inspired Lowe’s interest in aviation and unmanned aircraft.
08:54 — The Tele Vista: Low Invents Television?
Low’s early television experiments and his demonstration of electrically transmitted images before the First World War.
10:21 — World War I and the Aerial Target
How Low’s RAF research turned radio-control technology into a pioneering pilotless aircraft.
16:18 — 1917: The First Full-Size Radio-Controlled Aircraft
The Aerial Target takes flight, while the Kettering Bug and other British, French and American experiments reveal the wider origins of drone warfare.
20:59 — Drones After World War I: Queen Bee and Beyond
How the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the de Havilland Queen Bee and American program
Thanks to SOULFULJAMTRACKS for their tune "Dark Halloween"
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History's Devils is a history podcast exploring the lives of murderers, charlatans, psychopaths, dictators, war criminals, tyrants, demagogues, revolutionaries, cult leaders, conquerors, fraudsters, and other controversial figures.
History's Devils is hosted by James Crossland, professor of international history and author of:
Rogue Agent: From Secret Plots to Psychological Warfare, the Untold Story of Robert Bruce Lockhart
The Rise of Devils: Fear and the Origins of Modern Terrorism...
