World War Two Airborne TV Camera
At the beginning of World War Two, RCA focused its TV engineering effort on developing military uses for television. A smaller version of the Iconoscope, the 1846, was developed to be put in a lightweight camera. This camera was installed in the nose of a remote controlled glide bomber. This camera was used after the war, for commercial purposes, and was used in the Korean war. Click for more information on early U.S. military TV systems.
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The glide bombers were carried aloft under B-17 bombers, and then released a few miles from their intended targets.
In the B-17, one person operated the television camera, while another person attempted to guide the glide bomber to its target.
The glide bombers turned out to be difficult to control, and few actually hit their targets. Later, these cameras were installed in B-17s that had reached the end of their useful lives. The bombers were filled with explosives, then crashed into targets.