where did the idea of helicopters come from
Helicopter The earliest references for vertical flight came from China. Since around 400 BC,[8] Chinese children have played with bamboo flying toys (or Chinese top).[9][10][11] This bamboo-copter is spun by rolling a stick attached to a rotor. The spinning creates lift, and the toy flies when released.[8] The 4th-century AD Daoist book Baopuzi by Ge Hong (抱朴子 "Master who Embraces Simplicity") reportedly describes some of the ideas inherent to rotary wing aircraft.[12]
History of unmanned aerial vehicles The earliest recorded use of an unmanned aerial vehicle for warfighting occurred on August 22, 1849, when the Austrians attacked the Italian city of Venice with unmanned balloons loaded with explosives known as Austrian balloons. At least some of the balloons were launched from the Austrian ship Vulcano. Although some of the balloons worked and successfully managed to bomb The Republic, others were caught in a change of wind and blown back over Austrian lines. This occurred on the first launch as the wind was not in Austria's favor on July 12, 1849[1] The Austrians had been developing this system for 66 years, since the idea was hatched in 1783. The Presse, of Vienna, Austria, stated: "Venice is to be bombarded by balloons, as the lagunes prevent the approaching of artillery. Five balloons, each measuring 5.7 meters in diameter, are in construction at Treviso. In a favorable wind the balloons will be launched and directed as near to Venice as possible, and on their being brought to vertical positions over the town, they will be fired by electro magnetism by means of a long isolated copper wire with a large galvanic battery placed on a building. The bomb falls perpendicularly, and explodes on reaching the ground."[2] Balloons do not generally meet today's definition of a UAV. Once winged aircraft had been invented, the effort to fly them unmanned for military purposes was not far behind.