“BRAINS IN METAL”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 680, 4 June 1929, Page 11

“BRAINS IN METAL”

PILOTLESS AIRPLANES New experiments, with apparatus developed from recent trials, are to be undertaken secretly by France and America, with the object of perfecting pilotless airplanes. British work in this field is now of a completely “hush-hush” character. But it may be said that technicians are making progress quite as remarkable as that of any other country. Recent developments in the wireless control of a pilotless airplane represent further triumphs for science. Manless flights of approximately 100 miles have, it is reported, been accomplished in the United States. In France, swift little machines, without pilots, responding to wireless orders sent them from below, have been made to ‘"stunt ’ just as if a skilled airman sat at their controls. “Alt intelligence in metal! An assemblage of mechanism which does everything but think!” So an expert has described one pilotless craft. Ten years’ research have gone to the construction of this machine; a year being devoted to the solution of a single detail. In France a scheme for a network of automatic air-mails has been laid before a commission which is investigating pilotless flight. It is proposed that manless mailplanes should not only receive constant impulses by wireless, guiding them on any given course, but should themselves emit automatic signals. These received constantly at ground stations, will enable operators to follow upon an illuminated screen the progress of the winged carriers with their loads of express letters.