| PONGO | Genus name of the orang-utan; or, the nickname of the Drones Club character Reginald Twistleton (5) |
| IDLETALK | The converse of the Drones' Club? |
| APE | Copy the orang-utan, say (3) |
| NOBBS | David, comedy writer who created the character Reginald Perrin (5) |
| WODEHOUSE | Comic author nicknamed Plum who wrote numerous novels and short stories set in fictional locales including Blandings Castle, Berkeley Mansions and the Drones Club (9) |
| SHORTENED | Deployment of the drones gets abbreviated (9) |
| ELISE | "The First Wives Club" character |
| TYLER | Brad Pitt's Fight Club character, ___ Durden |
| DETHRONE | Get rid of the drone somehow (8) |
| HITCH | Type of knot; a movie with Will Smith; or, the nickname of the director whose films include of Strangers on a Train, Rear Window and The Birds (5) |
| NINON | Sheer textile of silk or rayon; or, the nickname of the French courtesan born Anne de Lenclos (5) |
| VIOLA | Heroine of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night; genus name of the pansy; or, an instrument in the chordophone family (5) |
| UPUPA | Imitative of its call, the Latin or genus name of the hoopoe (5) |
| URANO | Word used to denote heaven or the sky, thus found in the Latin or genus name of the stargazer fish |
| SPIKE | Species or type of lavender; another name for an old piton used to belay in rock climbing/mountaineering; or, the nickname of Terence Alan Milligan (5) |
| ERICA | Latin or genus name of the winter heath whose cultivars include December Red, Golden Starlet, Ice Princess and Snow Storm (5) |
| LINUM | Genus name of the linen plant flax (5) |
| BUTEO | Latin/genus name of the buzzard (5) |
| SCOUT | The nickname of the narrator of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (5) |
| PINDI | What is the nickname of the city which hosted the third Test match between Pakistan and England held recently? (5) |
