Unmanned aerial vehicles have been part of military aviation since 1918, when the U.S. Army developed the Kettering Bug—a biplane with a gross weight of about 530 pounds loaded and a 40-horsepower De Palma engine that could fly 40 miles with a 180-pound payload. It was intended as a flying torpedo, but the war ended before it was used in combat. In World War II, the Navy used radio-controlled TDR-1 drones for attack missions. The modern era began with the Israeli Scout in 1981, which provided real-time reconnaissance during the Bekaa Valley conflict. The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, introduced in 1995, became the first modern long-endurance armed UCAV to enter routine post-9/11 combat service, firing Hellfire missiles in Afghanistan after 9/11. Today, civilian drones outnumber military aircraft by orders of magnitude. The FAA cites roughly 850,000 registered drones in the U.S. (recreational and commercial combined), while recreational fleet estimates reached about 1.87 million in 2024. For manned aircraft pilots, the challenge is integration: small drones operate in the same airspace as general aviation, creating collision risks and new regulatory frameworks that are still evolving.