How the U.S. used drones in the 'Vietnam War

摘要

At a surface-to-air missile site south of Hanoi on February 13,1966, radar appeared to lock on a lone incoming aerial reconnaissance aircraft. The North Vietnamese crew launched an SA-2 Guideline missile and within 30 seconds the intruder was blasted out of the sky. The men on the ground celebrated their score, never to know the Pyrrhic nature of their victory. Indeed, they had been tricked into engaging a "sniffer drone" that was launched to provoke their attack. In the seconds it took the SA-2 to reach its target, the drone detected, recorded and transmitted all the missile's vital electronic signals to an aircraft flying over the South China Sea.