The DH82B Queen Bee: What You Might Not Know About Britain’s 1st Drone From WW2

The de Havilland DH82 Tiger Moth was an interwar British trainer biplane. It was developed into an early WW2 drone called the Queen Bee. The Queen Bee first flew in 1935 but this wasn’t even the first drone built by the British. The British built the world’s first drone (a small radio-controlled aircraft) in 1917 during WW1, called the Aerial Target. Aircraft like the Tiger Moth and its Queen Bee drone variant are overshadowed by the more iconic aircraft of World War II (such as the Spitfire and Messerschmitts). The British made many excellent fighter aircraft in World War II (the RAF was perhaps the leading force that crushed the German Luftwaffe).