; acy > s vs prs tee Mae aa ED F6F DRONE FROM VUL2, CHINCOTEAGUE, WITH ENS. M. E. SMITH AS SAFETY PILOT FLIES WITH MOTHER 7F7 PILOTED BY E.G. CALLAS, PRC (AF) RADIO ROBOTS VERYTHING'S checked out. You and your F6F are ready for takeoff, You up throtce to 32” manifold pressure... she revs up. . . you release brakes up full throttle. The Hellcat starts down the run- way... she’s in the air, You raise landing gear, and flaps. She's reached 400 feet and you set her into autocruise, Notify the control plane to take over —and settle back, down on the ground, while you wait for the plane to land again. Yes, you've been piloting an FOF during takeoff all right, but you aren'c in the cockpit! In fact, nobody's in the cockpit—be- cause this FGF is a standard Grumman fighter co verted 10 radio control, needing no human pilot You've initiated and controlled her takeoff by Aip ping switches and moving a miniature control stick in a little black box from a ground control station alongside the runway But that’s not all. Up there, in a “control” plane, the pilot, using a black box like yours on the ground and a throttle control for the FGF built into his own stick, is ready to fly her. How is it done? It looks simple, but ie took many years of experimentation for the Navy to develop its drones. Today the research is going on at Johnsville and other places to perfect re- mote control of operational-type planes at faster speeds, from greater distances and with greater case. a eg ec GROUND CONTROL OFFICER ON OFEEATION CROSSROADE BRINGS IN RADIO-CONTROLLED HELLCAT DRONE, PLANES FLEW THROUGH ATOMIC CLOUD