Lawrence Sperry officially invented the airplane autopilot system in the early twentieth century and subsequently became the very first founding member of the infamous mile-high club just a few years later.

A closer look

Lawrence Sperry officially invented the airplane autopilot system in the early twentieth century and subsequently became the very first founding member of the infamous mile-high club just a few years later. He crashed his flying boat into the waters off the coast of New York while allegedly engaging in some wildly inappropriate airborne activities with a married socialite, setting a terrible precedent for aviation history. When rescuers arrived, both passengers were found completely naked, which Sperry desperately tried to blame on the sheer force of the impact somehow stripping them of all their clothing. It is strangely poetic that the exact same man who gave pilots the technological ability to take their hands off the flight controls immediately used that newfound freedom to pursue the most reckless, highly dangerous romantic endeavor physically possible