Peter Bromhead: A lost career opportunity

Illustration / Peter Bromhead

If only I'd taken up manufacturing drone aircraft for the US military, instead of drawing cartoons, I'd now be pouring Cristal Champagne over my breakfast cornflakes, instead of trim milk.

There's really no excuse. Back in Britain, I was flying radio-controlled primitive drones as a 12-year-old - superb model planes capable of carrying armaments in the form of small bags of flour.

Accompanied by a number of other horrible children, we'd cycle to the peak of Ivinghoe Beacon, in the Chilterns, assemble our balsa wood aircraft and attach our flour bags under the 1m wingspan with radio-controlled release clips.

The sport was to launch them off the 233m peak and target cars parked at the base of the hill.

A prize strike was to fly over an open convertible such as an MG, and try to release a bag of flour on to the driver's seat.

I eventually constructed a pod-shaped plane with a rear-mounted engine that was the envy of my chums because of its superior payload of six flour bombs mounted under the wings.

Our fun as marauding aviators would end with the termination of the summer holidays and we'd all disperse back to our various educational establishments. I last recall seeing my model hanging from a nail in the garage.

Arriving back from naval school at a later date, I discovered the garage had been cleaned out to fit a post-war Morris Minor and my plane had been binned.

Well, I thought it had been disposed of, but I now realise that my mother must have sold my prop-driven beauty to the US military, because today's MQ-9 Reaper drone, formerly known as the Predator-B, is a replica of my 1940s construction.

The only difference is that our harmless flour bombs have been replaced with Hellfire missiles.

Unfortunately, I've long lost the original plans and without photos or witnesses (my boyhood chums are either dead or gaga) I have little hope of mounting a copyright action against the US manufacturers.

The main difference between today's remote controlled planes and my early aerial constructions is that the contemporary drones seem to crash a lot.

Since 2001, a total of 400 have been lost, at a replacement cost of US$4.3 million each.

No wonder I'm gnawing my nails at the lost career opportunity to become an aviation zillionaire.