Sperry Corporation the new automatic pilot. In 1924, following the death of Lawrence on December 13, 1923, the two firms were brought together. The company became Sperry Corporation in 1933. The new corporation was a holding company for a number of smaller entities such as the original Sperry Gyroscope, "Ford Instrument Company", "Intercontinental Aviation, Inc.", and others. The company made advanced aircraft navigation equipment for the market, including the Sperry Gyroscope and the Sperry Radio Direction Finder. Sperry supported the work of a group of Stanford University inventors, led by Russell and Sigurd Varian, who had invented the klystron, and incorporated this
James Warner (aviator) James Warner (aviator) James Warner (1891–1970) was the radio operator on the aircraft "Southern Cross" piloted by Charles Kingsford Smith for the first trans-Pacific flight in 1928, during which radio was first used successfully on a long distance flight. Warner was born near Lawrence, Kansas, in 1891. His parents divorced during his early childhood. His mother cared for his two sisters but their father took James and his two brothers to an orphanage in Wichita and left them there. At the age of five he was adopted by a German family named Oswald and spent most of the rest of