The first aircraft autopilots were developed more than a century ago by an American named Lawrence Sperry; he demonstrated the device in France during 1914. It took a further twenty three years, however, before technology had advanced sufficiently to achieve the first automated landing. Following a series of experiments with automatic landing systems the U.S. Army Air Corps achieved this feat on August 23rd, 1937 with a short flight between Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio and nearby Patterson Field. This was a low-budget affair and succeeded only because of the persistence of the few pioneers involved in adapting surplus equipment from other projects and, in some instances, materials which team members had bought with their own money.