February 1959 Popular Electronics Table of Contents Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Electronics, published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

Carl Kohler strikes again with this 1959 Popular Electronics magazine techno-story entitled, "My Guided Missile." His alter ego, self-proclaimed "genius-type engineer" protoself faces off against an exasperated wife over his latest ambitious creation - the Kohler Komet homemade guided missile. Undeterred by his wife's concerns about past radio-control mishaps, he takes the rocket to Bonneville Flats for testing, assuring her of its safety features, including a parachute recovery system. However, disaster strikes when the launch startles him, causing him to crush the transmitter. The missile spirals out of control, narrowly missing the group before obliterating a police car in a spectacular crash. The wife's deadpan "I win" underscores the absurdity as the hapless inventor faces a bemused judge, who remarks that the incident "comes mighty close to sabotage." It's a lighthearted tale of DIY ambition gone awry. I colorized the drawings.

My Misguided Missile

By Carl Kohler

The only trouble with my gorgeous, intelligent wife is that she has unwittingly fallen victim to this Togetherness nonsense. If she had been busying herself with cooking, cleaning up the house, or any one of the half-hundred jolly little labors of love that marriage provides instead of coming poking around my work-shack, she wouldn't have had anything to be worried about.

"Holy Toledo!" she gasped, running a distraught hand through her thick tresses, "now what are you building ?"

"Chores all done ?" I asked evenly.

"Why, that looks like a rocket!" she peered wonderingly at my latest project - the Kohler Komet. "Yes, sir, that's exactly what it looks like! One of those ... uh ... guided thingamuhjigs!"

"Leaves all raked? Hearth-fire laid ?" I inquired firmly. "We like to run a tight house around here, don't we, dear ?"

She swung a pair of nervous eyes on me.

"You're building a guided whatchmuhcallit!" she yelped, accusingly. "You know what the city regulations say about fireworks, yet you're calmly sitting in your little work-shack building a guided whosis!"

"Missile," I said, grinning boyishly for effect. "And I care not that," I snapped my fingers for effect, "for city regulations! A guided missile is not fireworks, no matter how far one stretches the concept."

She glanced at the not-yet-installed radio-control equipment still laid out upon the bench. If there's anything in the way of electronic equipment my wife can recognize, it's R/C components.

"Oh, no!" she softly moaned.

"Heh-heh-heh!" I said, chuckling merrily. "I can't fool you, can I!"

"Every time you've built anything that's been R/C-run, we've had nothing but near tragedy!" she wailed. "When I think that you're actually planning to combine that awful-looking -"

"All us genius-type engineers have a mild history of trial and error behind us," I said confidently. "It makes for nice contrast when the triumphs start popping up," I did a brief waltz-clog in one spot. "... or, I should say, when the triumphs begin shooting up!"

"B-But why a guided missile ?"

"Not all the important innovations or improvements have come out of government laboratories," I said quietly. "In fact, the scientific history of our glorious land is rooted in many, many electrical and electronic advancements which have sprung from homespun workshops, as it were - unsung notions first painstakingly studied and worked up in the unglamorous basements and backyard labs of modest men of genius similar to - heh-heh - myself!"

I teetered back and forth on my heels for effect.

"You once told me your R/C transmitter wouldn't send a signal for more than two miles." She turned a face pinched with anxiety to me. "Assuming that nothing goes wrong with the controls this time, how are you going to manage this thing after it goes beyond the two miles?"

"Ah, that's a good question. And I have a good answer for it," I assured her. "First, I keep the missile in a orbital course inside two miles after blast-off. Secondly, it will only carry enough fuel for a four-minute flight - so I hardly think it could go very far even if something should -"

"And how do we pay for the house it smashes when it comes crashing back to earth?"

I tapped a small, ingeniously designed device.

"The moment the fuel cuts out, this relay system activates another device which releases a large parachute." I smiled somewhat snidely. "The large parachute then slowly, easily floats the missile gently ... gently!

"What if the large parachute fails to open ?"

"We go on the lam, Honey bun," I said harshly.

She favored me with stare. "And to think I wouldn't marry Jasper Flugleman because he was nuts about speedcar racing!"

When she went out, she slammed the door.

A week later, I brought the car to a halt on the desolate sands of the Bonneville Flats. There was nothing but empty distance in all directions for quite a spell. Rubbing my hands in anticipation, I removed the Kohler Komet from the trunk and began assembling the dismantled sections.

"I'm willing to bet - right here and now - that thing manages to hit something!" declared the wife gloomily.

"Absurd!" I chortled. "Look around. Nothing but sand flats. Nothing but barren ground. Nothing but nothing!"

"I can wait," she admitted.

After setting the Komet on its launching platform a decently safe distance from my car, I hooked up the electrical firing system I'd cleverly designed. Then, viewing the slender waiting missile with great satisfaction, I picked up the R/C transmitter and rejoined the wife.

"I've set the firing device," I said, glancing at my watch. "It should go off within twenty seconds. Brace yourself. I imagine that special liquid fuel I mixed will create quite a blast."

"Here comes a car," she said evenly. "It looks like a police car. It is a police car. Better put out the fuse on the rocket, darling."

I glanced at my watch.

"Not enough time! It's due to let go any second now! I wouldn't have enough time even to-"

Suddenly, the Komet blasted off. The air was filled with thunder, the earth trembled and pitched underfoot. Thrown off balance, I landed smack-dab on top of the transmitter. I could feel the delicate components inside tinking to smithereens.

For a couple of minutes we - the wife, the two police officers and myself - stared up into the sky, watching the Komet climbing steadily into the clouds until only a fading trail of smoke indicated its progress.

"That gizmo yours, buddy ?" demanded the burlier of the two officers.

"Yes, sir," I admitted. "You see, I -"

"Look out, Fred!" shouted the thinner of the two officers, "Here it comes!"

Horrified, we jerked our heads around, in unison, to see the Komet coming straight across the flats at us, about ten feet above the ground!

"Eek!" chirped the wife.

"Everybody!" yelled Fred, "on the ground!"

We bit the dust. The Komet streaked past with a weird shriek of air-slashing sound. Then it was gone again. Cautiously, we raised our heads.

"Can't you control that thing ?" demanded Fred.

"Nope." I shook my head sadly. "The transmitter is busted. I fell on it when -"

"Here it comes again, Fred!" yawped the other officer.

I didn't need a slide rule to tell me that if the Komet stayed on its course across the flats it was going to come whamming right into the police car. Morbidly fascinated, I watched it flash toward the vehicle, murderously skimming three feet above the ground.

"Hey, the thing's gonna -" began Fred.

"I win," murmured the wife.

The Komet landed neatly, horribly on target. It was almost fantastic to see how much tearing, rending damage it wrought as it plowed noisily into the police car. One wouldn't dream that sixty-five pounds of aluminum and assorted metal components could accomplish that much damage - even at high speed.

We stumbled to our feet, stunned.

"Well," growled Fred ominously, "we can still use your car. "

"Be my guests," I said in a hollow voice.

They graciously accepted the invitation.

Exactly three days later, I shambled up before the stern-faced, dignified old gentleman sitting behind the judicial bench. He finished reading the written details of the report given orally by the officers a few moments earlier. Then he pinned a pair of icy eyes on me.

"I wouldn't actually say this entire, outrageous matter smacks of sabotage," he stated generously, "but it comes mighty close to it. What have you to say ?"

Painfully I cleared my throat.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the wife sitting tensely with her purse clutched tightly in her hands ... the purse containing the assumed amount of the fine, as advised by local legal talent ... veritably a life's savings.

I cleared my throat again.

"Y -Your Honor," I said, allowing a twisted smile of mingled shame and courage to play across my lips, "Your Honor, I can explain everything."

And I did, too.

Almost.