Radio Controlled Flying Bomb
In 1942 General Ferdinando Raffaelli came up with the idea of packing an SM.79 with explosives and a radio control device. On 12 August 1942, as the Operation Pedestal convoy was steaming off the Algerian coast, a SM.79 drone, a Z.1007bis guide plane and an escort of five FIAT G.50 fighters flew out to intercept it. Once the pilot of the SM.79 had set his aircraft on a course toward the Allied ships he bailed out, leaving the Z.1007bis crew to guide the flying bomb the rest of the way by radio. The radio controls malfunctioned and with nothing to guide it the SM.79 drone cruised along until it ran out of fuel and crashed into Mount Khenchela on the Algerian mainland. Raffaelli later developed a simpler single-engined guided bomb, the Ambrosini A.R.4, which was tested in June 1943, but the armistice intervened before it could go into production.
Another proposal suggested using a parasite Macchi C.202 coupled with a SM.79 or A.R.4 in an arrangement similar to the German Mistel, but with the fighter remotely guiding the bomber to its target.
Read more about this topic: Savoia-Marchetti SM.79
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