Lawrence Sperry staved a hole in it. In 1979, Sperry was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. Sperry was inducted into the Naval Aviation Hall of Honor at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, in 1992. Lawrence Sperry Lawrence Burst Sperry (21 December 1892, Chicago, Illinois, United States – December 13, 1923, English Channel) was an aviation pioneer. He was the third son of the gyrocompass co-inventor, Elmer Ambrose Sperry and his wife Zula. Sperry invented the first autopilot, which he demonstrated with startling success in France in
Sperry Corporation producing the company's first digital computer, SPEEDAC, in 1953. During the 1950s, a large part of Sperry Gyroscope moved to Phoenix, Arizona and soon became the Sperry Flight Systems Company. This was to preserve parts of this defense company in the event of a nuclear war. The Gyroscope division remained headquartered in New York—in its massive Lake Success, Long Island, plant (which also served as the temporary United Nations headquarters from 1946 to 1952)—into the 1980s. In 1955, Sperry acquired Remington Rand and renamed itself Sperry Rand. Acquiring then Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and Engineering Research Associates along with Remington Rand,