Radio-controlled Aircraft - History

History

The earliest examples of electronically guided model aircraft were hydrogen-filled model airships of the late 19th century. They were flown as a music hall act around theater auditoriums using a basic form of spark-emitted radio signal. In the 1920s, the Royal Aircraft Establishment of Britain built and tested the pilotless Larynx, a monoplane with a 100-mile (160 km) range. It was not until the 1930s that the British came up with the Queen Bee, a gunnery target version of the de Havilland Tiger Moth, and similar target aircraft. Radio control systems for model aircraft were developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s by English enthusiasts such as Howard Boys, who patented his 'Galloping Ghost' system of proportional control and became a regular contributor to Aeromodeller on the topic.

In the United States, two pioneers in the field of controlling model planes by radio were Ross Hull and Clinton DeSoto, officers of the American Radio Relay League. During 1937, these two men successfully built and flew several large R/C gliders in the first public demonstration of controlled flights, in the course of which their sailplanes made more than 100 flights. A scheduled R/C event at the 1937 National Aeromodeling Championships attracted six entrants: Patrick Sweeney, Walter Good, Elmer Wasman, Chester Lanzo, Leo Weiss and B. Shiffman, Lanzo winning with the lightest (6 pounds) and simplest model plane, although his flight was rather erratic and lasted only several minutes. Sweeney and Wasman both had extremely short (5-second) flights when their aircraft took off, climbed steeply, stalled and crashed. Sweeney, however, had the distinction of being the first person to attempt a R/C flight in a national contest. The other three entrants were not even able to take off, although Good, with his twin brother William, persisted with developing R/C systems, culminating in first placings in the 1940 US Nationals and again after the end of World War II, in 1947. Their historic R/C model airplane, which they named the “Guff,” was presented to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., in May, 1960, where it can be seen today.