Photos: UAVs land in the Smithsonian

The RQ-2A Pioneer looks like the Shadow 200, but it's somewhat bigger and has been around longer--the first Pioneer deployment with the U.S. Navy was in 1986. A 26-horsepower, two-cycle gasoline engine propels the 14-foot-long UAV to speeds up to a bit over 100 mph and over a range of about 115 miles.

The Pioneer aircraft in the Smithsonian exhibition served in the Gulf War in 1991, and had the distinction of aiding in capturing enemy combatants. "While it was assessing damage from naval gunfire to targets on Faylaka Island near Kuwait City," the museum write-up says, "several Iraqi soldiers signaled their intention to surrender to the aircraft during a low pass--the first time enemy soldiers had ever surrendered to an unmanned aerial vehicle. They were later captured by U.S. ground troops."

Photo by U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Reynaldo Ramon

Caption by Jonathan Skillings