In 1948, one demonstration of a 'hands-off' B-17 fight landing almost went very wrong

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In 1948, one demonstration of a ‘hands-off’ B-17 fight landing almost went very wrong



A B-17 bomber sets out on a test flight from the airfield of the Boeing plant based in Seattle. (Library of Congress)

By John Kelly
Columnist
Yesterday at 7:00 p.m. EDT

Sometime between 1947 and 1956 there was an air show at Bolling Field. I was a kid, attending that show with my World War II pilot father. They were flying an empty B-17, remote controlled by a radio link from a second B-17 flying behind it, attempting to land the pilotless plane on the runway in front of the crowd. The remote-controlled plane hit hard. I can still see this in slow motion in my mind: The plane was sliding off the runway toward the reviewing stands where we were sitting. It was a pretty dangerous thing to attempt at a public show in front of a crowd. Does anyone have a memory of this?

— Paul Friday, Washington

The B-17 that landed hard that day — Sept. 18, 1948 — was not pilotless, but it wouldn’t be quite right to say that Capt. Horace L. Spencer was at the controls. Well, he was and he wasn’t.

Spencer was what was known as the B-17’s “safety” pilot, seated in the cockpit and ready to take the yoke in case something went wrong. Piloting the drone in flight from a nearby B-17 “mother ship” was Lt. V.F. Grissom Jr. On the ground at Bolling was another pilot, Lt. Allan H. Hoover, who was to control the landing.

Spencer and Grissom had taken off that morning from Eglin Field in Florida, destined for Washington and an air show marking Air Force Day. The planes were showcasing an experimental technology introduced in World War II. During the war, pilotless aircraft served as missiles, delivering a punch to hardened, well-defended targets.

The idea was to strip old bombers — the term the brass used to describe these battered workhorses was “war-weary” — of all unnecessary equipment and pack them with explosives. Human crews would take off from airfields in England and bail out 10 minutes later after arming the charges. A pilot on the mother ship would take control, using radio signals to direct the drone and crash it into its target. The Army Air Forces called its effort Aphrodite, the U.S. Navy, Anvil.

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Twitter: @johnkelly

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