Hewitt - Sperry Automatic Airplane The Hewitt - Sperry Automatic Airplane was a project undertaken during World War I to develop an aerial torpedo , also called a flying bomb or pilotless aircraft , capable of carrying explosives to its target . It is considered by some to be a precursor of the cruise missile . History . Conceptual development . Before World War I , the possibility of using radio to control aircraft intrigued many inventors . One of these , Elmer Sperry , succeeded in arousing the US Navy ' s interest . Sperry had been perfecting gyroscopes for naval use since 1896 and established the Sperry Gyroscope Company in 1910 . In 1911 , airplanes had only been flying for eight years , and yet Sperry became intrigued with the concept of applying radio control to them . He realized that for radio control to be effective , automatic stabilization would be essential , so he decided to adapt his naval gyro - stabilizers ( which he had developed for destroyer s ) . In 1913 , the Navy provided a flying boat to test and evaluate the gyro - based autopilot . Sperry ' s son Lawrence served as an engineer during the test phase . In 1914 , Lawrence Sperry was in Europe and observed the developing techniques of aerial warfare , including the use of aircraft . In 1916 , the two Sperrys joined Peter Hewitt , an early inventor of radio - related devices , to develop an explosive - laden pilotless airplane . Elmer Sperry and Hewitt served together on the Naval Consulting Board , where they both were members of the Committee on Aeronautics and Aeronautical Motors . Because of these connections , they were able to arrange for a representative of the Navy ' s Bureau of Ordnance , Lt . T . S . Wilkinson , to examine the control equipment they assembled . The system consisted of a gyroscopic stabilizer , a directive gyroscope , an aneroid barometer to regulate height , servo - motors for control of rudders and ailerons , and a device for distance gearing . These all could be installed in an airplane which could be catapulted or flown from the water , and would climb to a predetermined altitude , fly a pre - set course , and after traveling a pre - set distance , drop its bombs or dive to the ground . Wilkinson reported that the weapon did not possess a degree of accuracy sufficient to hit a ship , but , because of its range of 50 to , it might be of interest to the Army . Construction begins . However , after the US declaration of war on Germany , Sperry began urging the navy to revisit the idea . The Naval Consulting Board supported him , and formally requested the Secretary of Navy to apportion $ 50 , 000 for the work . The government thus included the development of the flying bomb or aerial torpedo in its war preparations . The Senate went so far as to establish two classes for the type weapon , one for wireless control , the other for completely automatic operation . Final approval came on May 17 , 1917 , and the Navy agreed to provide five ( later upped to seven ) Curtiss N - 9 seaplanes and to purchase six sets of the Sperry automatic control gear . Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels agreed to spend $ 200 , 000 on the project , with the money to be administered by the Bureau of Ordnance , the Bureau of Construction and Repair and the Bureau of Engineering . The operation was established at Copiague , Long Island . The autopilot equipment was already designed , but the radio control system hadn ' t been fully developed , so while the hangars were being built at Copiague , Sperry turned his attention to this aspect , purchasing rights to a number of patented radio - related inventions . Ultimately , though , the radio control systems were not used on the Hewitt - Sperry Automatic Airplane . Later , in 1922 , the system was installed on several Verville - designed planes along with gear for the Army Air Services engineering division . These aircraft successfully hit their targets from ranges of 30 , 60 and . Flight test . The first test flights of an autopilot - equipped aircraft was in September , 1917 , and took place with a human pilot on board to fly the takeoff . By November , the system successfully flew the aircraft to its intended target at a range , where the distance - measuring gear would drop a bag of sand . Accuracy was within two miles ( 3 km ) of target . Having observed the test flights , Rear Admiral Ralph Earle proposed a program to eliminate the German U - boat threat , one element of which was to use flying bombs , launched from Navy ships , to attack the submarine bases at Wilhelmshaven , Cuxhaven and Heligoland . Ultimately this plan was rejected , but had an element of prophecy , for in September 1944 , during World War II , a modified B - 24 flying as a drone attacked the submarine installations at Helgoland . Not only was Earle ' s recommendation rejected , but the Navy declared that though development of the system was to continue , no production resources were to be diverted to it , and it was not to go into production . Curtiss - Sperry Flying Bomb . When the N - 9 flight test program got started , it became apparent that a more efficient airframe was needed . Because war production deliveries could not be diverted , a special , rush order was placed with Curtiss in October , 1917 , for six planes of unique design , with an empty weight of , top speed of , range of and the capability of carrying up to of explosives . They became known as the Curtiss - Sperry Flying Bomb . Because this was to be a design dedicated to the remote control concept , the planes were not equipped with seats or standard pilot controls . No flight or wind - tunnel testing of the design was performed before production began . The first was delivered on November 10 . One of the most daunting challenges to the designers was the launch mechanism . The original concept envisioned by Hewitt and Sperry was a catapult mechanism or from the water ( the N - 9s were seaplanes , the Flying Bomb was not ) . For the Flying Bomb , it was decided to try to launch it by sliding it down a long wire . In November and December 1917 , three attempts were made to launch the Flying Bomb . On the first launch , one wing was damaged as the plane went down the wire , and on the second , the plane lifted from the wire but immediately plunged to the ground . The wire method was then abandoned in favor of a traditional catapult with a track , with power obtained from a 3 - ton weight being dropped from a height of . On the third try , the plane lagged behind the cart , damaging the propeller , and the plane flipped over its nose . Two more attempts in January , 1918 , saw the plane get airborne , but it was too tail - heavy , so it stalled and crashed almost immediately . It was realized that some flight test evaluation of the aircraft ' s capabilities was necessary . One of the planes was then fitted out with sled runners for landing gear , a seat and standard control stick , and Lawrence Sperry decided that he would be the test pilot . While taxiing it on ice , he hit some slushy snow , and wrecked the plane , though Sperry was unhurt . A second airplane was fitted out , and Sperry managed to get it in the air , but lost control when the automatic pilot was engaged . After two complete rolls , Sperry managed to regain control and land safely . Clearly , though , more attention to flight testing the basic design was needed , particularly in the area of handling qualities . Sperry and his assistant , N . W . Dalton , obtained a Marmon automobile , and mounted the Curtiss - Sperry Flying Bomb to the top of it . In this configuration , Sperry and his crew drove the Long Island Motor Parkway at , one of the first examples of an open - air wind tunnel , and adjusted the flight controls to what they thought was the optimum settings . The design of the fuselage was changed slightly , lengthening it by two feet . The Marmon was not only an excellent way to adjust the flight controls , it was realized that it would also be a good launching platform , and this was tried on March 6 , 1918 . The aircraft left the car cleanly , and flew in stable flight for the that the distance - measuring gear had been set for . For the first time in history , an unmanned , heavier - than - air vehicle had flown in controlled flight . The feat , however , could not be duplicated , and it was thought that the roadway was too rough . The Marmon was fitted with railroad wheels , and an unused spur of the Long Island Rail Road , four miles ( 6 km ) east of Farmingdale , New York was put back into service . On the first try , before full flying speed had been reached , the aircraft developed enough lift to raise the front wheels off the track , and another crash resulted . It was time to re - think the catapult system , and to help design it , Sperry and Hewitt hired a young and promising engineer named Carl Norden . The first try with the new system was in August , 1918 , and it too resulted in a crash . Two more tests were tried , with the stabilization package that had been design for the Flying Bomb replaced with the four - gyro system used earlier on the N - 9 tests , but the result was again a disappointment , with very short flights ending in crashes . On the last one , on September 26 , the Flying Bomb climbed straight for about a hundred yards , then entered a spiral dive and crashed . This was the final flight for the Curtiss - Sperry Flying Bomb , as all the usable airframes had been consumed in crashes , and there remained no confidence in the design . Sperry and Hewitt returned to the N - 9 . Return of the N - 9 . The Sperrys built a wind tunnel at the Washington Navy Yard and carried out a series of tests on the N - 9 , fine tuning the design . On October 17 , an unmanned N - 9 was launched using the new Norden catapult system . It came cleanly off the track , climbed steadily and flew within 2° of the line of intended flight . The distance gear had been set for a flight of eight miles ( 13 km ) , but somehow malfunctioned . When last seen , the N - 9 was cruising over Bayshore Air Station at about , heading east . It was never seen again . Despite the success of the stabilization gear , there was doubt in the Navy about the program , and they asked Carl Norden to review the Sperry components and recommend improvement . The navy was , by now , satisfied with the concept , and was contemplating purchasing such equipment on its own , apart from the Sperrys . Elmer Sperry tried to stir up enthusiasm again , calling the concept of the flying bomb the " gun of the future " . This was to no avail , however . World War I came to a close when the Armistice was signed on November 11 , 1918 . Almost a hundred flights had been flown in the N - 9 , but almost all of these were in the N - 9s and had a safety pilot on board . The Navy took complete control of the program from Sperry , spelling the end of the Hewitt - Sperry Automatic Airplane . Follow on programs . During the early post - war years , the Navy sponsored similar projects . For the first program , Witteman - Lewis aircraft and Norden - designed gyrostabilizers were used , but the results were no better than those achieved by the Sperrys . In 1921 , the program was reoriented to focus on the radio control aspect . The control equipment was developed at the radio laboratory at NAS Anacostia ( later the Naval Research Laboratory ) . In 1923 , tests began , and were relatively successful , but interest waned and the project lapsed in 1925 . Over a decade was to pass before the Navy seriously undertook the development of target drones and pilotless aircraft .