'Battle of Palmdale': Sound, Fury and 1 Lost Plane (Free Registration)
Peter Merlin, an archivist and historian in the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center history office, recently stumbled across a little-remembered aviation incident.
Back in Aug. 16, 1956, a U.S. Navy Grumman F6F-5K Hellcat pilotless drone went out of control and headed toward Los Angeles.
Two USAF Scorpion interceptors scrambled to shoot down the plane and fired more than 200 rockets at it. The rockets missed the drone and instead damaged property and set off a string of brush fires across northern Los Angeles County.
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