The X-47B prototype on Tuesday flew off an aircraft carrier and into the history books. Today's achievement, the first-ever catapult launch of an unmanned aircraft from the flight deck of a carrier, promises to open up a new chapter in the annals of naval aviation. Photo: An X-47B pilot-less drone combat aircraft is launched for the first time off an aircraft carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia, May 14, 2013. The U.S. Navy made aviation history on Tuesday by catapulting an unmanned jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time, testing a long-range, stealthy, bat-winged plane that represents a jump forward in drone technology. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)

Pilots plan a flight manoeuvre with model aircraft at a military air base in Vasylkiv, Ukraine, August 3, 2016. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Damaged buildings are pictured at night in Aleppo, Syria December 11, 2015. (Photo by Ammar Abdullah/Reuters)

Spectators in Moscow were treated to the site of humorously designed makeshift aircraft plunging into the Muskova River during the Red Bull Flugtag Moscow 2011 competition. 38 teams took part at the Flugtag – which means “flying day” – a competition in which teams in fancy dress attempt to pilot human-powered, home-made flying machines off a six-meter-high platform into water.

Photo: A makeshift aircraft plummets into the Moskva River during the Red Bull Flugtag Moscow 2011 competition. (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

People walk in the Old City of Damascus, Syria, decorated for the upcoming Christmas holidays, Tuesday, December 14, 2021. (Photo by Omar Sanadiki/AP Photo)

Internally displaced Syrian children play inside a refugee camp in the Hama countryside, Syria January 1, 2016. (Photo by Ammar Abdullah/Reuters)

An injured girl reacts at a site hit by an airstrike in the rebel-held Douma neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria November 7, 2016. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

An injured boy who is undergoing surgery, after he was injured in what activists said was an airstrike by forces loyal to Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, rests inside a field hospital in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria December 5, 2015. Douma in Syria, an area controlled by rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, has been shelled continuously for the past three years. The injured are taken to basements and shelters transformed into field hospitals run by medical staff who have stayed in the battered neighbourhood of Damascus. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)