Popular Science: During WWI, a daredevil pilot helped invent the first ‘drones’

From my Century In Motion column on Pop Sci

Lawrence Sperry’s autopilot proved planes could fly themselves.

On November 21, 1916, pilot and inventor Lawrence Sperry was flying over Long Island’s Great South Bay with his student Dorothy Rice Pierce when his plane suddenly plunged into the water.  Sperry later admitted that he’d accidentally bumped the autopilot, a technology he’d recently invented, disengaging it and causing the crash.

Both survived, although Pierce suffered a fractured pelvis. The crash spawned sensational headlines such as “Aerial Petting—Ends in Wetting,” a phrase that has lingered in aviation lore and later histories of Sperry’s career. But the real story was not an aerial scandal. It was that Sperry’s autopilot invention was the more reliable pilot...

During WWI, a daredevil pilot helped invent the first drones

Many thanks to Sarah Durn, Popular Science Associate Editor.

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