Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane and Lawrence Sperry decided that he would be the test pilot. While taxiing it on ice, he hit some slushy snow, and wrecked the plane, though Sperry was unhurt. A second airplane was fitted out, and Sperry managed to get it in the air, but lost control when the automatic pilot was engaged. After two complete rolls, Sperry managed to regain control and land safely. Clearly, though, more attention to flight testing the basic design was needed, particularly in the area of handling qualities. Sperry and his assistant, N. W. Dalton, obtained a Marmon automobile, and mounted the Curtiss-Sperry Flying
Sperry Corporation (Sperry New Holland), avionics (e.g., gyroscopes, radars, Air Route Traffic Control equipment) (Sperry Vickers/Sperry Flight Systems), and consumer products (electric razors) (Sperry Remington.) In addition, Sperry Systems Management (headquartered in the original Sperry Gyroscope building in Lake Success) did a fair amount of government defense contracting. Sperry also managed the operation from 1961 to 1975, of the large Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant near Minden. Sperry bought out and continued the RCA line of electronic digital computers: architectural cousins to the IBM System/360. In 1983, Sperry sold Vickers to Libbey Owens Ford (later to be renamed TRINOVA Corporation and subsequently Aeroquip-Vickers).