JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
This illustration appeared in the December 1917 issue of Popular Mechanics, just a year away from the end of WWI. This was a promotion for the idea of a remote-controlled miniature-aircraft, which was equipped with bombs and suggested to be an “irresistible engine of annihilation”. The map displays how the aircraft–or multi-squadrons of them–could be controlled from Dunkirk to bomb targets in Zeebrugge, Bruges, and Thourout, “without the loss of a single flier”.
- “Will the radio bombing plane and the flying torpedo be similarly evolved in time to crumble the fortresses of autocracy along the Rhine?”.
The small inset of the flying machine at bottom right seems to be little more than a bomb (a “mechanically controlled aerial torpedo”).