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
Paul A. Sperry running start and stopped dead in his tracks. This was the invention of the first pair of Sperry Top-Siders. In 1937, Sperry applied for a United States patent for his non-skid sole. He first offered the patent to the United States Rubber Company of Connecticut. The company turned him down because the sole would cost $4.50, when an expensive shoe at the time cost $3.75. Sperry then offered the patent to Converse Rubber Company in Boston, Massachusetts, which agreed to make blank rubber soles and ship them to Sperry for siping and then assemble the finished shoes and return them