The public got a preview of the postwar private plane in a St. Louis air show last fortnight. The plane, it appeared, will be equipped with self-starter, automatic brakes, will be spinproof, stallproof, non-capsizable on landing. One model even got rid of most of the controls, reducing the pilot's job to turning and tilting a steering wheel. Missing from the show, however, was a plane that can fly with an automatic pilot.
Last week the veil of military secrecy was lifted to reveal such a plane. Rear Admiral De Witt C. Ramsey, chief of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, spoke in a...