VARIED OPINIONS ON USE OF MECHANICAL BRAIN IN BOMBING

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 September 1947, Page 8

VARIED OPINIONS ON USE OF MECHANICAL BRAIN IN BOMBING

LONDON, Sept. 23.

The special correspondent of the New Zealand Press Association says that the "'mechanical brain” which operated the four-engined Skymaster on its automatic flight of 10 hours 15 minutes across the Atlantic is said to be the only one of its type in the world. The aircraft is taxied into position by the pilot. Then a button is pushed for the aircraft’s destination . The “brain” works out how long it will Hake to fly there, preselects its speed, calculates the speed of head or tail winds, and sets the aircraft down at a predetermined time at its destination.

The United States Embassy in London, giving a report of the flight, said that when the Skymaster reached the height at which it was to fly across the Atlantic it picked up a

guiding beam from a ship out at sea. It "homed.” on this beam until a second ship in the middle of the Atlantic took over. This in turn handed over to a mobile-transmitter on a lorry at the Brize Norton airfield. Radar from the lorry guided the Skymaster in to land. When the beam from the lorry was

sent out the aircraft automatically started into a glide, lowered its wheels, and landed. The landing, like the flight, was automatic. Impulses fed into the “brain” operated the flaps, put down the wheels, and cut out the engines. “Everything went beautifully all the way.” said Colonel Gillespie. “We could have slept in comfort but we were too interested in watching the equipment.” This trans-Atlantic crossing is reported. to be the longest pilotless flight ever made. The previous best was 2000 miles flown by an American trarisoort in June.

Use in Bombing

Some difference of opinion seems to exist on whether the “brain” could be used for bombing. An American Air Forces spokesman in New York is reported as saying that as a radio signal was required to guide the plane to its destination it could not | be used for bombing targets, as they I would not send out such signals. An ' American officer in England is reported as saying: “It means that in war bombers can be sent to their targets without pilots.” A military air expert said: “The brain may be as important in war as the atom bomb. Any city in the world would be vulnerable. Crewless aircraft flown by radar may be possible for civil flying and could change the whole economics of commercial flying."