Editing Flying bomb (section)

==Historic exemplars==
''[[The Sphere (newspaper)|The Sphere]]'' of March 13, 1915 published an article on "The Possibilities of an Aerial Torpedo Controlled by Wireless", suggested by a "correspondent to the Sphere" and declared feasible by an "aviation expert".

The first attempt to build a flying bomb (alternatively called an "aerial torpedo" in the Navy) was undertaken by [[Elmer Sperry]] for the US Navy in [[1916 in aviation|1916]], called the [[Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane]], and was based on a [[Curtiss N-9]] seaplane. This led to a mission-specific Curtiss design, the [[Curtiss-Sperry Flying Bomb]], which was almost completely unsuccessful. The US Army also tried to develop a flying bomb in [[World War I]], the [[Kettering Bug]], but the war ended before the program could mature. The functioning but unsuccessful German [[Mistel]] flying bomb was essentially an enormous [[shaped charge]] mounted on a repurposed twin-engined medium bomber's airframe (most often a [[Junkers Ju 88]]) in place of the cockpit, that was guided by [[Composite aircraft|a fighter sitting on top]]. The fighter first took a course towards the target, then released the Mistel which would continue to its target. The best known example of a flying bomb is the German [[V-1 flying bomb|V-1]], many of which targeted [[London]] in 1944 during [[World War II]].