Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1941-07-04

bombing fOrayS executed by Avia-
tors on the ground a thousand
miles away may still be far off,
but it's steadily getting nearer.
The basis of such imaginings Is that
old will O. the wisp of aviation, the
pilotless, radio-controlled airplane.
It's been dreamed about for so long
the flying men yawn when you men,
ton it. But the same skepticism marked
the embryo days Of every notable ad-
vance, from Noah'S Ark to the automo-
bile and television. And right now
there's so much smoke in the radio
plane field that there's bound to be
fire not far in the offing
In the first place, both the army
and the navy have been experimenting
with radio-controlled planes.
During recent naval operations in
Honolulu it was unofficially but re-
liably reported that a pilotless plane,
controlled by radio from another plane,
was sent off from an airport and flown
over cruiser units at sea.
Surprising Robot Ships
And the army air corps officers at
Selfridge field Detroit, have been max
ing no secret of surprising experiments
with robot ships.
The planes in use there are obsolete
two-seater biplanes, converted into
single-seaters, with one set Of controls,
operated through radio-controlled
mechanism by flyer" on the ground.
The other set of controls, discon-
nected but disable at the flick of a
switch, is in the cockpit with an OBJ
server flyer, who goes along to grab
the ship If it gets out Of control and
to save all the apparatus from being
smashed.
The main reason these planes haven't
been adopted widely for target prac-
tice and actual fighting is their cost.
A two-engined plane costs around
S25 OO0 and bomber at least $4,000.
When you have spent that much for
a plane, you might as well put a man
in 1t to make sure that is is operated
correctly as to entrust uncertain ap-
paratus to do the same job. When the
cost of making a robot plane gets a
lot lower. and the demand for flyers
exceeds the supply more than at pres
ent, it might be feasible to put a
fleet of robots in the air.
How such a ship would operate in
IL
the statement of an American volun-
teer in the British air service, Patrick
Breen of New York, who thought, from
its strange behavior, that he might
have seen one in operation during a
German bombing raid on London.
The plane was twin-engine
bomber" he related, and it was at
less than 5000 feet, because I could
see the insignia on its tail.
"Antiaircraft guns blasted away at
it, but it continued on a direct course
across Victoria station in a direct line
for the Parliament building and the
River Thames.
1T did not change course one bit.
1t did not climb or glide or turn all
the time it was in sight. which GER
tainly led me to believe that the ma
chine was radio-controlled. probably
from a plane way up"
A model radio-controlled plane 8
feet long with a 14-foot Widespread
and a gasoline engine was demon
strated last month by its inventor.
Verlin Haines, at Port Columbus o.
The plane nosed into the ground
after flight of two minutes, but the
accident was attributed to the controls
sticking and not to any fault in the
radio mechanism. Haines plans to con-
tinue experimenting
He estimated that full-sized planes
on the same order, capable of $50 miles
an hour, could be built for only 5000,
exclusive of engine costs, and that
fleets Of them loaded with bombs could
be shot up into the path of invading
hOnherS or in mace flioj,te into a,,a,,,,,
country-with no pilots to be lost.
Another enthusiastic experimental
with robot planes is Reginald Denny,
the movie actor. He was a British
aviator observer in the World war, and
he got so interested in model airplanes
a few years ago that he gave up act
ing to manufacture them.
A-Foot Radio Plane
He has developed a 14-foot wing
spread radio plane, ideal for aerial
target practice, with trick parachute
device he invented which floats the
plane gently to the ground if it is
disabled. He announced the other day
that his plant had been awarded
contract to build number of them
for the army.
So radio controlled planes are con-
siderably out of the pipe dream class,
and if they can be operated as effec-
lively as the present model ones, the
day is bound to come when full-size
ones will be hurtling through the air
on real missions.
The main drawback in operating
them. to date, is that being controlled
from the ground they are useless be-
yond the horizon where the operator
can't see what's happening to them
But there's an answer for this prob
lem from no less an authority than
DR.. Lee De Forest, the radio pioneer,
who with U. A. Sanabria, electrical
engineer-investor, is applying scien-
tific knowledge to an idea that has
occurred to a lot of people making
robot planes effective at long distances
by equipptng them with television me-
chanical eyes"
AS the radio control impulses flowed
from the ground to the plane, the
plane through television lenses in its