"Aphrodite- The first Drone." Topic

"After completing 80 323rd BS missions, Aphrodite B-17F (The Careful Virgin) was used against Mimoyecques, but impacted short of target due to controller error.Old B-17 Flying Fortress bombers were stripped of all normal combat armament and all other non-essential gear (armor, guns, bomb racks, transceiver, seats, etc.), relieving about 12,000 lb (5,400 kg) of weight. To allow easier exit when the pilot and co-pilot were to parachute out, the canopy was removed. Azon radio remote-control equipment was added, with two television cameras fitted in the cockpit to allow a view of both the ground and the main instrumentation panel to be transmitted back to an accompanying CQ-17 �emothership�f. The drone was loaded with explosives weighing more than twice that of a B-17�Œs normal bomb payload. Moreover, the British Torpex used for the purpose was itself 50% more powerful than TNT.

General Carl Spaatz, overall commander of U. S. Army Strategic Air Forces, admitted that �gwe are becoming increasingly aware of our inability to achieve accurate bombing on some of our top priority targets.�h

What Spaatz wanted was nothing new; like his predecessors in the long quest for precision, he hoped new and better technology would solve his inaccuracy problems. As a result, he and other leaders of the air war in Europe embraced several high-profile precision guidance projects during the final year of fighting. Particularly noteworthy as a harbinger of more advanced guidance technologies to come was an experiment given the singularly nonbellicose name Aphrodite. In the letter just cited, Spaatz informed the Air Staff in Washington that �gthe premium on accurate bombing is very great . . . we are therefore willing to pay the high price of introduction of new and complicated apparatus because the return is proportionately high.�h Ironically, it was the desire to precisely strike the launch sites of Germany�fs pseudo-guided V-2 rockets that motivated the development and deployment of some of the war�fs first proto-precision guided munitions. At a meeting on June 26, 1944, 8th Air Force commander, General James Doolittle, directed his 3rd Bombardment Division in England to conduct the experimental project code-named Aphrodite. Using a variety of technologies, including radio control and television imaging, Project Aphrodite created 20,000- pound bombs out of war weary bombers, and attempted to remotely pilot them to destroy the large rocket launching sites in the Pas de Calais area of France. After expending nineteen robot aircraft, and six smaller glide bombs, Aphrodite project managers concluded that, while these experimental missions �gproved the value and serviceability of the weapon and equipment,�h the results were �gnot satisfactory as far as damage to enemy installations.�h They attributed the overall failure to weather, vulnerability to flak defenses, and personnel and equipment failure…"

link

Full article here.
weaponsandwarfare.com/?p=30195

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting, but not the first drone, though -- the Royal Navy used the Fairey Queen and De Havilland Queen Bee as remotely-piloted targets in the mid-1930s.

All the best,

John.

link

And even earler drones.

And the Aphrodites were not true drones, since they
required aircrew to take-off.

Joe Kennedy Jr. lost his life piloting one of these. KI remember reading a book dedicated to Aphrodite around 40 years ago.