“MANLESS FLIGHT.

Shannon News, 14 September 1923, Page 4

“MANLESS FLIGHT.

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC BY WIRELESS. RO’MANTIC SCIENTIFIC PROJECT. Secret plans are now reported in air circles to be taking shape for one of the most romantic of all scientific achievements. This project—which would have been declared fantastic only a little time ago, but which is considered so no longer by those best able to judge—is for a wirelessly-controlled, pilotless airplane flight across the Atlantic between Europe and America.

It appears that at recent discussions between experts who, on both sides of the Atlantic, have been concerned, recently, wi.th automatic manless flights, lasting as long as an hour, the whole problem of a wirelessly-directed air journey of thousands of miles, the machine aloft being passed in and out of the control-area of one station after another, has been revived in all its details.

A first Atlantic flight, by an air machine completely pilotless; will probably be made in the direction from America to Europe, because on this route, for long periods at a time great, high-altitude favouring winds may be relied upon. FIVE MILES A MINUTE.

The trans-atlantic manless ’plane shall, it is proposed, have engines and air-screws adapted to function at impense heights above ocean-level. Guided, in fact, at its start, so that it climbs miles high, and then heads — ' like some great projectile fired from a monster gun—towards the coasts of Europe, it is believed that the machine will, aided by some great upper ’airtide,” devour distance at the rate of four and even five miles a minute! One of the most fascinating aspects of the scheme is the employment, at the point where the pilotless machine will complete its above-ocean voyage, of a great, improved type wireless “beacon.” One might compare this to a vast lighthouse, shining its rays far seaward to attract the eyes of mariners. Only in this case the “beam” from the "beacon” is a powerful projection of wireless energy. The idea, in fact, is that the invisible “ray” from' the beacon flashed out over the Atlantic, shall influence —while it is still at a great distance—a special mechanism in the pilotless 'plane connected with the control surfaces of the machine. (Aad what, in effect, will result is that the ’plane, pointing its bow automatically till it is heading direct for the distant “beacon,” will fly to it unswervingly, just as a sea-going - ship might be steered by its human pilot towards the visible lights of some shore station. INVISIBLE TO THE SKY. International co-operation is suggested in regard to the guidance of the manless craft while far out in midAtlantic. Ships with specially-fitted wireless plants will be required, some setting out from the American side and some from European waters. Between them these craft, plotting out' by wireless direction-finding the position of the machine, without any | human occupant, invisible in the sky i far aloft, will send up to it the im- j pulses necessary to keep it heading in the right direction. ' j Perhaps one of the greatest pieces j of wizardry will be the method by I which the pilotless 'plane itself, even , without anybody on board, will signal I its own position, from minute to J minute, as it rushes, unseen, through I the higher air. This will be effected by a perfectly self-contained automatic wireless installation within the machine itself. Operated by a mechanism driven by the power plant of the ’plane, this i wireless installation will keep sending j out, over and over again,, a pre- ■ arranged signal which will be , recognised by all those listening-in for it By this means ships and shore stations, working out the positidn of the plane from the stream of signals emanating from it, will keep track of it, and guide it on its long trans-ocean flight.