General Motors 1941 Flying Torpedo

[Stargazer]

Undoubtedly one of the very earliest U.S. target drones (alongside the Radioplanes):

http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/Test_129:_General_Motors_Flying_Torpedo

 

[cluttonfred]

Don't forget the immediately-post-WWI Kettering Bug and Sperry Messenger Aerial Torpedo....

 

[Stargazer]

Don't forget the immediately-post-WWI Kettering Bug and Sperry Messenger Aerial Torpedo....

True, true. Even saw a Sperry at the Long Island Museum a long time ago...

My remark out to have included the word "modern" before "target drone"...

 

[Clioman]

This is a fascinating program, but there isn't much info on it. Here are a few more photos -- they're in the collection of a grandson of an Air Corps radio-controlled acft experimenter. If you use the photos elsewhere, please credit "the Fagan Collection."

 

[edwest4]

Thank you both, especially the one that shows the size.




Ed

 

[VictorXL188]

This is a fascinating program, but there isn't much info on it. Here are a few more photos -- they're in the collection of a grandson of an Air Corps radio-controlled acft experimenter. If you use the photos elsewhere, please credit "the Fagan Collection."

Given that the name Bug is used , is this not the Kettering Bug, which was designed by Charles Kettering who later designed the General Motors A-1, which is the drone shown at the beginning of this thread?

 

[dan_inbox]

Don't think so. The Kettering bug was a biplane, looking very different.

 

[Abingdon]

The General Motors Aerial Torpedo-1 was a flying bomb, not a target drone. It was cancelled in 1943 after the USAAF decided it needed larger and faster flying bombs. It led to the XBQ-1/XBQ-2/XBQ-3, then to the Castor/Aphrodite programs. The GM AT-1 was nicknamed the "Bug" since Kettering was behind both the 1918 and 1941 programs.
Had it gone into production, the planned launch platform was the B-25 bomber. Here's a model I completed recently based on wind-tunnel models of the configuration.