THE SHAPE OF TH
Does this
article from
a 1910 issue of
TECHNICAL
WORLD magazine
describe a mysterious longrange attack airship UAV
almost one hundred years
before such UAV’s became
a reality?
Mr. Thomas Raymond Phillips, a
consulting engineer of Liverpool,
England, has invented an aerial
apparatus whereby, he can, he
claims, control from any center,
such as London or New York, and
airship flying hundreds of miles
away. Sitting at a transmitter he
can send a dirigible balloon
through the air at any height and
practically to an distance: he can
make it ascend or descend at will,
turn to the right and left, go
backwards and forwards, fast or
slow, and – most important of all
– can bring it to a standstill at a
given spot, so as to drop
explosives over a city, or an army
or battleship.
A large model of the terrible
engine of war was recently tested
in the London Hippodrome before
a small audience which included
Mr. Claude Grahame-White, the
aviator who recently
distinguished himself in his
attempt to rival M. Paulham in
flying from London to
Manchester for the $50,000 Daily
Mail prize. The inventor of the
aerial destroyer, which has been
destr
offered to the British government,
claims that his principle can be
applied as successfully to manlifting airships and aeroplanes as
he applied to his model.
“I can sit in an arm-chair in
London” he declared, “and make
my airship drop a bunch of
flowers into a friend’s garden in
Manchester, or Paris, or Berlin.”
As he said this his fingers
wandered over the keys of a
complicated electrical apparatus
which suggested nothing so much
as the keys of an ordinary
typewriter. Every time he pressed
a key there was a cracking noise
and a lightning like streak shot
from each of two brass knobs
towards a small metal globe that
stood halfway between them. The
model dirigible swayed gently in
the auditorium until Mr. Philips
suddenly touched a lever.
Instantly it stopped dead. The
inventor touched another key and
the dirigible came slowly down to
within a foot or two of the
operator. As the latter played on
the keys before him. The
oyer
rose and
fell, turned this
way and that, cut figures
of eight and finally
floated motionless in the
air forty feet above the
orchestra stalls.
“Imagine,” said the
inventor, “that I am
controlling a full size airship with
a cargo of dynamite bombs and
that the row of stalls represents so
many houses”. He again touched
a key. There was a click from the
framework of the airship and the
bottom of the box that hung
amidships fell like a trap door and
in doing so released not bombs,
but a number of paper birds,
which fluttered gracefully down
“on the place beneath.”
Mr. Graham-White personally
tested the invention and
apparently proved for himself the
unlimited possibilities of the
principle of wireless transmission
of power. “The two propellers in
front,” explained the inventor,
“are for steering and general
control. I use no rudder. The
steerage propellers move on an
arm pivoted at right angles to the
frame. If I want the airship to turn
right, I press the button connected
with the motor of the right hand
propeller. The propeller revolves
the arm turns to the right, and the
body of the airship follows. Of