LEAFLET DROPS

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32977, 25 July 1972, Page 13

LEAFLET DROPS

Pilotless craft

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) SAIGON, July 24. The United States Air Force was using unmanned supersonic planes to drop propaganda leaflets over North Vietnam and was considering employing the pilotlesj craft for bombing missions, United States sources said yesterday. The drones have been used in simulated bombing runs on test sites in the United States, but never as bombers in actual warfare. The automatic planes, radio controlled from a specially outfitted Cl 30 “mother ship,” were originally designed to carry cameras on reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam and China and had been used successfully in this role since the early 19605, the sources said. The “pilots” of the drones sit in front of banks of television and radar equipment in the “mother ship” and guide the planes to their targets. The drones are capable of speeds of up to 900 miles an hour, can fly as high as 60,000 ft and for distances of more than 700 miles to and from a target. The drones and their mother ships were based at the United States installation at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, near the Laotian border, the sources said.