Admiralty 1920's 'Hornet' guided ground to air missile system

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Indeed, despite the Admiralty’s efforts to ridicule Trenchard’s claims, they were very worried about what the torpedo-bomber might mean for the future of their capital ships. During the 1920s they would go to great lengths to improve air defence, including, with the Hornet programme, an attempt to develop a guided ground-to-air missile.

The Admiralty were already investigating this possibility with their ground-to-air Hornet system. A radio-controlled ‘ram interceptor’, with a 50 per cent speed advantage over the bomber, seemed a real possibility. There were some encouraging reports of success in the United States with similar systems. Less encouraging was the Admiralty decision to abandon their Hornet programme because the guidance problems were too great.

Baughen, Greg. The Rise of the Bomber: RAF-Army Planning 1919 to Munich 1938 (Kindle Location 1405). Fonthill Media. Kindle Edition.


This looks to be earlier than the RAE Ram, is there any information on it?
 
Less encouraging was the Admiralty decision to abandon their Hornet programme because the guidance problems were too great.

The obvious rejoinder to that is, "You'll never solve them if you don't keep trying." The desire for a workable weapon in a given timeframe is understandable, but sometimes you have to accept that your failure to do that has to become a basic research project rather than just being flushed down the toilet.
 
The obvious rejoinder to that is, "You'll never solve them if you don't keep trying." The desire for a workable weapon in a given timeframe is understandable, but sometimes you have to accept that your failure to do that has to become a basic research project rather than just being flushed down the toilet.

Yep. The radio control at this time wasn't easy, especially for aerial system. For, say, radio-controlled target ships, the simple number of pulses encoding with stepping switch on receiver was sufficient. But for pilotless plane, such system would be too slow to react. And number of other issues also - like achieving the stability while not losing the maneuvering - was also pretty hard to solve.
 

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