Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Co News

The U.S. Navy, and the aeronautic field in general, has benefited enormously from the genius of more than one Sperry. Lawrence Burst Sperry, the second son and third child of gyrocompass inventor Elmer A. Sperry was a pioneer in instrumental flight and famous inventor in his own right, launching the Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Co. at 26, and earning 23 patents before his untimely death at the age of 31 in 1923. It was no exaggeration. Like his father before him, Sperry’s engineering brilliance more than made up for his lack of a college degree…

Elmer A. Sperry casts a long shadow over the history of modern naval, nautical and aeronautical technology, one few people know much about, but should, for a man crowned both the “father of modern navigational technology” and “the father of automatic feedback and control systems,” as well as a pioneer of rocket and missile technology. “It is safe to say that no one American has contributed so much to our naval technical progress,” eulogized Charles Francis Adams III, Secretary of the Navy from 1929-1933, on the death of engineering genius Elmer Ambrose Sperry, June 16, 1930, at 69.