Among William Lear's 150-Plusrnpatents are designs for the first practical car radio, the Learjet, even the eight-track stereo tape player. But Lear's most successful creation was thernautopilot. While the technology had been around since 1914, when father-son team Elmer and Lawrence Sperry held a demonstration in Bezons, France, the autopilot was found only in slow-reacting airplanes such as airliners and bombers.
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