Final approval came on May 17, 1917, and the Navy agreed to provide five (later upped to seven) Curtiss N-9 seaplanes and to purchase six sets of the Sperry automatic control gear.
The first was delivered on November 10.
The Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane was a project undertaken during World War I to develop an aerial torpedo, also called a flying bomb or pilotless aircraft, capable of carrying explosives to its target. It is considered by some to be a precursor of the cruise missile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewitt-Sperry_Automatic_Airplane
。
