An interesting clip of history at
- posted
19 years ago
An interesting clip of history at
| An interesting clip of history at |
No doubt they weren't very effective. Television was in its infancy, and there appears to be no other means to guide such an airplane with any accuracy, so I suppose the target must have been relatively close to the operator so he could at least drop his bombs within a mile or so of the intended target. Even a pilot inside the airplane has trouble hitting what he wants, never mind some guy watching from a distance. There were probably more enemy who died laughing than were killed by such weaponry. On the other hand, the anti-aircraft target drones mentioned in the article were common and successful. They were powered by a light, McCulloch 72-hp opposed four-cylinder two-stroke engine, with one magneto, and had a design service life of 15 minutes. These engines were readily available cheap on the surplus market in the '60s and were often seen in Bensen gyrocopters and other homebuilt aircraft. I bought a Taylor Monoplane in 1973 that had one on it, and when it ran it sounded like King Kong's chainsaw. The two front cylinders fired together, and then the rear two, and the vibration was awesome. I found that the entire firewall structure had delaminated due to the shaking, and only the gluing assembly bolts were holing the thing together. Spent three years rebuilding it before giving it up as a bad job. Oil-soaked wood, crappy glue joints, misrigged and twisted wings. All I have of it now are a few instruments. The engine had a total of eight hours on it, and the carb throttle shaft had eaten a big hole on the throttle body, and the mags on these things were known to quit when they got hot. A story about the Navy bigshots visiting a carrier goes like this: The boys run a drone past at 5000 feet or so, and the AA guys bang away at it. Missing every shot. They fly the drone past at 2500 feet, and the guys shoot some more. Still no hits. They bring it by at
1000 feet, and lots more lead and powder are wasted, but still it flies. The PA comes on: "Clear the decks! We're going to land this thing and beat it to death!"Dan
I was reading several articles in the AMA magazine last year about Reginald Denny. There was a picture of an assembly line with a good looking woman assembling something, name Norma Jean Baker...later changed her name to Marilyn Monroe!
Don
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