Autopilot reducing the pilot's workload. Lawrence Sperry (the son of famous inventor Elmer Sperry) demonstrated it in 1914 at an aviation safety contest held in Paris. At the contest, Sperry demonstrated the credibility of the invention by flying the aircraft with his hands away from the controls and visible to onlookers of the contest. Elmer Sperry Jr., the son of Lawrence Sperry, and Capt Shiras continued work after the war on the same autopilot, and in 1930 they tested a more compact and reliable autopilot which kept a US Army Air Corps aircraft on a true heading and altitude for three
Sperry Corporation Motor Company, who in 1991 sold the Ford-New Holland line to Fiat) and Sperry Marine (To Tenneco, in 1987, and is currently part of Northrop Grumman). Also sold—to Honeywell—was Sperry Flight Systems, while Sperry Defense Products Group was sold to Loral; those two units whose functions were originally at the heart of the venerable Sperry Gyroscope division. This group is now part of Lockheed Martin. Sperry in Britain started with a factory in Pimlico, London, in 1913, manufacturing gyroscopic compasses for the Royal Navy. It became the Sperry Gyroscope Co Ltd in 1915. In 1923, Lawrence Sperry was killed in