{"id":6570239,"date":"2026-07-21T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=6570239"},"modified":"2026-08-24T16:55:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:55:04","slug":"kettering-bug-aerial-torpedo-1918","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/kettering-bug-aerial-torpedo-1918\/","title":{"rendered":"America Built a Cruise Missile in 1918"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><\/p>\r\n<p>At 5:55 on the evening of Friday 4 October 1918, a small biplane with cardboard wings and a papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 body lifted off a wheeled dolly running down a portable track near Dayton, Ohio. There was nobody aboard and nobody controlling it.<\/p>\r\n<p>It was supposed to fly a preset distance, shut its engine off, drop its wings and fall on a target. Instead it kept going, climbing, until it disappeared eastwards at ten thousand feet. Charles Kettering, watching it go, decided there was nothing to be done and said to let the thing stay up there.<\/p>\r\n<p>It eventually ran out of fuel and came down near Xenia. The Army told the local police and the local newspaper that it was a secret project, quashed all publicity, and burned the wreck where it lay.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; padding: 20px 24px; margin: 24px 0; border-radius: 8px;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 12px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17px; color: #222;\">Informazioni rapide<\/p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6;\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Nome<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">The Kettering Aerial Torpedo, known as the Kettering Bug. Secret project codename: Liberty Eagle<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Origine<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">November 1917 \u2014 the US Army asked Charles F. \u201cBoss\u201d Kettering for an unmanned machine that could hit a target 40 miles away<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Costruito da<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">The Dayton-Wright Airplane Company. Orville Wright was aeronautical consultant; Elmer Sperry designed the guidance<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Costruzione<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Wood laminates and papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 fuselage, cardboard wings<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Motore<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">One 40\u00a0hp four-cylinder De Palma, mass-produced by Ford at roughly $40 each. Total cost per Bug about $400<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Dimensions<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Span 14 ft 11\u00bd in, length 12 ft 6 in, height 4 ft 8 in, loaded weight 530 lb<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Testata<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">180 lb of high explosive. Cruise 50\u00a0mph, maximum 120\u00a0mph, range 75 miles<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Lancio<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">From a four-wheeled dolly running down a portable track \u2014 the same principle the Wright brothers used in 1903<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Costruito<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Fewer than 50 before the Armistice. Never used in combat<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">How it was supposed to work<\/h2>\r\n<p>There was no radio link and no operator. The Bug flew a course set before launch, held by a gyroscope, with an aneroid barometer maintaining altitude.<\/p>\r\n<p>The clever and much-repeated part is how it knew when to stop. The usual account is that technicians calculated in advance how many engine revolutions the flight would take \u2014 factoring in wind speed and direction along the route \u2014 and set a counter accordingly. When the counter reached the number, a cam dropped, the engine cut, and bolts holding the wings retracted so that the wings simply fell away. What was left dropped on the target as a bomb.<\/p>\r\n<p>It is worth flagging that the National Museum of the US Air Force, which owns the surviving reproduction, describes the mechanism slightly differently: a predetermined length of <em>time<\/em> closing an electrical circuit to shut the engine off. Revolutions are a reasonable proxy for distance flown through the air, so the two accounts are reconcilable in principle \u2014 but they are not the same mechanism, and the museum's version is the one from the institution holding the artefact.<\/p>\r\n<p>Either way, on the 4 October flight neither cut-off triggered. The Bug flew until it ran out of petrol.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px; width: 100%;\"><img data-opt-id=873519607  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/kettering-aerial-torpedo-nmusaf-early-years-gallery.jpg\" alt=\"Kettering Aerial Torpedo reproduction on display in the Early Years Gallery at the National Museum of the US Air Force\" width=\"1024\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">The full-size reproduction built by museum staff and displayed since 1964. No original Kettering Bug survives on public display anywhere. National Museum of the US Air Force<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">It mostly did not work<\/h2>\r\n<p>The honest test record, as compiled by the historian Kenneth Werrell, is two successes in six attempts at Dayton, one in four at Amityville, and four in fourteen at Carlstrom Field in Florida. Seven successes out of twenty-four.<\/p>\r\n<p>The first genuine test flight, on 14 September 1918, covered about a hundred feet before nosing into the ground \u2014 the carburettor misbehaved and the pneumatic system had swallowed wood splinters. A test on 2 October lasted nine seconds and ended with the Bug turning in a circle and scattering the Army observers who had come to watch.<\/p>\r\n<p>That unreliability is precisely why it never went to war. The Armistice arrived on 11 November 1918, five weeks after the first partially successful flight, but the deeper objection was already understood: nobody was comfortable sending a device with that failure rate over Allied trenches carrying 180 pounds of high explosive.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7; display: flex; gap: 20px; align-items: flex-start;\">\r\n<div><em>\u201clet the thing stay up there\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Charles F. \u201cBoss\u201d Kettering<\/strong> \u2014 Inventor of the Kettering Aerial Torpedo, watching the Bug of 4 October 1918 climb away and refuse to come down<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<p>Kettering was reportedly delighted rather than dismayed by the stories that circulated afterwards about what the runaway Bug had got up to on its way east.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #1565c0; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7; display: flex; gap: 20px; align-items: flex-start;\">\r\n<div><em>\u201cThe Bug was twenty five years ahead of its time. For all practical purposes it compared very favorably with the German V-1. Considering the trends in air weapons today, and that the German V-1 was not launched against Britain until the fifth year of WW II, it is interesting to think how this little Bug might have changed the whole face of history if it had been allowed to develop without interruption between the two world wars\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>General of the Air Force Henry H. \u201cHap\u201d Arnold<\/strong> \u2014 Looking back on the Kettering Bug programme<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px; width: 100%;\"><img data-opt-id=601971242  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/kettering-bug-reproduction-usaf-museum.jpg\" alt=\"Kettering Bug aerial torpedo reproduction, three-quarter view\" width=\"1024\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">A closer view of the reproduction. The airframe was deliberately cheap \u2014 cardboard, papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 and a $40 Ford-built engine, because it was never coming back. US Air Force<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">What it actually was<\/h2>\r\n<p>The Bug is routinely called the world's first drone. That is overreach on two counts.<\/p>\r\n<p>First, it was not alone. The US Navy's Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane was running from November 1917, and Britain had radio-controlled work of its own in the same period, kept secret at the time. \u201cOne of the first\u201d is defensible; \u201cthe first\u201d is not.<\/p>\r\n<p>Second, and more interestingly, it was not really a drone at all. A drone implies something flown or supervised remotely. The Bug had no radio, no operator and no way to be redirected once it left the track. You aimed it, launched it, and hoped.<\/p>\r\n<p>That makes it far less like a Reaper and far more like a cruise missile \u2014 which is exactly what Hap Arnold recognised when he compared it to the V-1 twenty-five years later. A cheap, expendable, pre-programmed airframe carrying a warhead to a fixed set of coordinates, built deliberately from materials nobody would mind losing.<\/p>\r\n<p>The US government spent about $275,000 on it between 1917 and 1920. Development continued quietly into the 1920s until the money ran out, and the technology stayed classified until the Second World War.<\/p>\r\n<p>Which means that when the V-1 started falling on London in 1944, the Americans watching it had already built something with the same idea inside it. Twenty-six years earlier. Out of cardboard.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gNO84yh2ZxY\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: -8px; font-style: italic;\">Period film of the Kettering Bug and its launch track.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Nk8weD2Kbrg\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: -8px; font-style: italic;\">The National Museum of the US Air Force\u2019s own close survey of the reproduction.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"display: flex; justify-content: center; margin: 2em 0;\">\r\n<blockquote class=\"reddit-embed-bq\" data-embed-height=\"500\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/HistoryPorn\/comments\/iovkn0\/the_kettering_bug_the_worlds_first_drone_being\/\">The Kettering Bug being tested by the US military, ca. 1918<\/a><\/blockquote>\r\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.reddit.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: National Museum of the United States Air Force; Michael H. Taint, \u201cTwenty-Five Years Ahead of Its Time\u201d, Proceedings of the Ohio Academy of History, 2018; Kenneth P. Werrell, The Evolution of the Cruise Missile; Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f0f4ff; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 16px 20px; margin: 32px 0 8px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 8px; font-weight: 600; color: #333;\">Post correlati<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/fu-go-bombe-a-palloncino-giapponesi-bly-oregon\/\">I palloncini di carta giapponesi sono volati fino in America<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/battaglia-di-palmdale-1956-drone-fuori-controllo-f-89\/\">Il giorno in cui l&#039;aeronautica bombard\u00f2 Los Angeles e manc\u00f2 il bersaglio.<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/curtiss-wright-vz-7-army-flying-jeep-quadcopter\/\">The Army's Flying Jeep<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cardboard wings, a papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 body and a $40 Ford engine. It counted its way to the target and dropped its own wings off. Hap Arnold called it twenty-five years ahead of its time.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":6569180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6570239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Kettering Bug: America Built a 1918 Cruise Missile<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cardboard wings, papier-mache body and a $40 Ford engine. 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