Re: Pigeon Guided Missles

"Allan C Cybulskie" <allan.c.cybulskie@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20060324213059.593$Qs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Allan C Cybulskie" <allan.c.cybulskie@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
If the pigeon is pecking on the projected image, then the projected
image
must be somehow measuring how far the missle is off the target and
displaying it in the right spot on the image. But if something was
doing
that well enough to be accurate, then why not hook that detection
directly to the controls, and adjust it from that mechanism directly?
Why do you need the pigeon?

I'm not sure what you are thinking, but all a device like that would
have to do is project a video image from the nose of the bomb on the
screen
with
the center of the screen calibrated for straight ahead and then use the
location of the pecks on the screen to steer the bomb.

But then all you'd have is a pigeon that can aim -- using its own visual
acuity -- at really big targets and probably hit them.

You do understand that this work we are talking about was done in WWII in a
day when they had no guidance systems at all. Hitting an aircraft carrier
in the ocean in daylight was damn hard to do without getting shot down
first. Dropping a bomb from 30,000 feet and letting a pigeon steer it to
the target would have been a fine improvement. That was the entire point
of the project.

But for most
short-range missiles

They had no short-range missiles in WWII. What are you talking about?

and bombs, simple timing (even of humans) is more
than sufficient to do that. To get REAL accuracy, you need an image that
adjusts to the precise areas that you want to hit or that can work over
long distances. But if you have a computer smart enough to know how to
display the image so that the pigeon can peck to correct the course, you
could just run that through the thrusters to have it steer the ship
directly ...

Ok, I do understand what you were talking about now. But the point was to
use the pigeons in WWII for bombs that were dropped from high altitude
where they were attempting to hit vary large targets - bridges, factories,
train yards, ships. They had no computers at all to display an image. I
don't know what they had tried to do. But if image-pecking was a good
option, they could simply have used optics to display the view on a frosted
glass screen that could pivot with mechanical connections (through
amplification) to steer the bomb as it dropped. It's not like anyone
expected to be able to hit a car like they do today. They just wanted to
improve the accuracy of bombs that were dropped from high altitude that
could not be dropped accurately enough to adjust for wind effects and the
like from that distance.

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/
.

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