For the better part of a decade, the U.S. Navy has been developing military drones -- helicopter based drones, airplane-sized drones, and of course smaller-than-airplane-sized drones as well -- so as to transform every ship in the fleet into a sort of drone aircraft carrier.

It's had some successes, notably with Northrop Grumman's (NYSE: NOC) MQ-8 Fire Scout and TERN drone aircraft, and it hired (NYSE: BA) to build it dozens of MQ-25A Stingray drone refueling tankers. The effort remains all rather ad hoc, however, and America's naval aviation forces remain for the most part a piloted fleet.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, China just built the world's first drone aircraft carrier.

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Source Fool.com