Italian mafia tested remotely controlled aircraft with bombs in the early 1990s

Hrm... odd kind of article from a place called "The Aviatonist" I mean it is interesting but RC controlled UAVs have been around since the 70's, with prototypes going back to the 40's.

        Only on February 26, 1973, during testimony before the                   
        United States House Committee on Appropriations, the 
        U.S. military officially confirmed that they had been 
        utilizing UAVs in Southeast Asia (Vietnam).[13] Over
        5,000 U.S. airmen had been killed and over 1,000 more 
        were either missing in action (MIA) or captured 
        (prisoners of war/POW). The USAF 100th Strategic 
        Reconnaissance Wing had flown approximately 3,435 UAV 
        missions during the war[14] at a cost of about 554 
        UAVs lost to all causes. In the words of USAF 
  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#History

The South African Air Force was flying surveillance UAVs in Angola and Mozambique in the 1970s and 1980s, also achieving the first flights of UAVs in controlled civilian aerospace in 1994 when military UAVs were used to monitor the country's first fully democratic election.

It also had remote-controlled target drones, loitering anti-radiation drones & TV-guided boosted flying bombs in the same era, all of which meet this article's very loose definition. As others have pointed out the US and Israel have also operated surveillance UAVs for decades.

The use of UAVs did not begin in Afghanistan in 2011.

They misspelled the name of Giovanni Falcone. Also I'm not sure it's safe to call them "drones" if they're just RC planes with a bit of explosive on top.

This reminds me of a mission in GTA Vice City where you had to tear down a building this way. Great game.

The Israeli Defense Forces made extensive use of drones for reconnaissance during the 1981 invasion of Lebanon. The use got a lot of press coverage then.

My grandfather designed and flew drones for Northrop in the 70s and 80s. They were used for target practice (US or foreign military would shoot at them). He flew them by adjusting oscilloscopes and he had a plotter on a map to show where the plane was.

Speaking of the Italian Mafia, today is the 21st anniversary of their assasination of Paolo Borsellino:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Borsellino

tested vs. used

I think we all did that in the 80s in Vice City...Stupid Zero missions