MECHANICAL PILOT

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 1 August 1928, Page 5

MECHANICAL PILOT

CONTROL GF AEROPLANE

DEMONSTRATION IN FRANCE

LONDON, July 16. A.ter ten years’ experiments, successful tests have been made of a mechanical ‘‘steel pilot'’ which, at the passengers’ will, will control aeroplanes in all weather with the certainty anti accuracy of a machine. In some manoeuvres it piloted the plane better than a human pilot could. Commandant Max Boucher,- the French ace, and llaoul Eernady, an engineer, are reported to have perfected the device, the Paris correspondent of the Daily News. The invention, which lias already demonstrated its possibilities, may easily revolutionise flying where the human element, with its inevitable fallibility, would seem to prevent perfect gaiety from being attained. If the “steel pilot” is immune from those fatal “er- 1 rors of judgment” which have been the 'cause of so many crashes, then it will indeed prove a boon. The “steel pilot” is capable of flying a large passenger aeroplane in any weather, enabling it to take off and j land unaided. It . controls the height) and direction of the machine’s flight in response to the passengers’ slightest wish, as expressed by means of an electric button. The official tests were held at the Istres Aerodrome, near Marseilles, before the French Aviation Commission. The “steel pilot,” which is of the simplest construction and weighs 701 b., was fitted to a Brequet bomber. The commissioners were the passengers, and the demonstrations lasted se.eral hours.

The ‘lsteel pilot” manipulated the joystick without a hitch, and it is even claimed that certain manoeuvres, such as the. correction of the plane’s balance alter a rapid turn and descent, were executed more easily and quickly than a human being could have done them.