Ukraine Navy Bayraktar TB2 in 48th scale from Clear Prop

Thinking about the history of drones, or UAVs, led me down a rabbit hole building a brief timeline of the their development. If I was very motivated, I would write a book about it, but I shall leave that to a more ambitious researcher/author. Here is the timeline that I put together in a couple of hours:

Circa 1232, Chinese gunpowder powered rockets.
1847, Englishmen William Henson and John Stringfellow built a 20ft. wingspan, steam powered model that did glide from its launch ramp, but did not sustain self-powered flight.
1895, work on fine-tuning aerodrome five and building number six brought Samual Langley closer to flight. Number five was launched and it flew. A second launch resulted in another successful flight. It flew three circles to the left and climbed about sixty feet. But, before making any announcements, he wanted to test his theories further. After a trip to Europe, Langley resumed his tests with number six. This craft flew forty-eight hundred feet in less than two minutes. He was unable to scale up the design.
1936, the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) was founded for radio-controlled model aircraft hobbyists.
September 1944, the maiden flight of the Fi 103 (V-1 flying bomb)
1942, Culver PQ-14 Cadet enters service for training anti-aircraft artillery gunners.
1946-48 Radio controlled F6F Hellcats used in atomic testing
1951, the first flight of the XQ-2 Firebee prototype.
March 1966, first launch of the D-21 supersonic drone.
1982 the AGM-86 air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) enters service.
February 1998, first flight of the RQ-4 Global Hawk.
August 21, 1998, Aerosonde's Laima became the first unmanned aircraft to cross the North Atlantic.
2007, USAF first flight of the MQ-9 Reaper.
2011, Bayraktar TB1, delivered to the Turkish army.

Regarding this subject, the following is pulled from of Baykar Technology's website:
The Bayraktar TB2 is a Tactical Armed / UAV System, developed and manufactured by Baykar. A highly sophisticated design that provides all solutions that operator may need in one integrated system. The system consists of Bayraktar TB2 Armed / UAV Platform, Ground Control Station, Ground Data Terminal, Remote Display Terminal, Advanced Base with Generator and Trailer modules. Thanks to Baykar's technological accumulation and capabilities, the entire system is produced indigenously.
Bayraktar TB2 is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE), Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle capable of conducting Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and armed attack missions. An onboard avionic suite with a triple redundant avionic system encompasses units enabling a fully autonomous taxiing, take-off, landing and cruise. TB2 has proven its efficacy with over 1.000.000 of operational flight hours. Since 2014, it keeps carrying out missions successfully within the Turkish Armed Forces, Gendarmerie and the Turkish National Police. Currently, 257 Bayraktar platforms are at the service of Turkey, Qatar, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. Bayraktar TB2 holds the record in the Turkish aviation history for endurance (with 27 hours 3 minutes) and for altitude (with 25.030 feet). Bayraktar TB2 is also the first-ever aircraft in its category to be exported abroad.

The full description of the kit and the build can be found on Modeling Madness,
https://modelingmadness.com/review/21st/turk/sumtb2.htm

5 additional images. Click to enlarge.