Project Aphrodite was designed to take the radio control equipment developed for the Azon guided bomb and create remotely piloted radio guided missiles using war weary B-17's. Using two man crews, pilot and flight engineer, the B-17 missiles, heavily laden with 10 tons of explosives, would take off, and after establishing straight and level flight, the crews would bail out. Radio control of the missile would be done from another B-17, which would guide it into high value targets such as sub pens or V-weapons sites.
In order to facilitate loading explosives into the bomber, one approach was to remove the raised fuselage aft of the cockpit and lower the warload into the gaping hole created. The crew would not be in the bomber very long, so the lack of creature comforts would not be a problem. Pilots assigned to the program would take the greatly lightened B-17 out for a spin, pull up next to B-24 formations that were forming up for a bombing mission, wave from the cockpit, and then pour on the coal and disappear over the horizon. Since the wind blast tended to blow their hats off, they got some scarves from their girlfriends and used them to tie the hats on.
These antics led to B-24 pilots reporting being buzzed by an open cockpit B-17 that displayed incredible performance and being flown by woman wearing babushkas . Of course, the B-24 pilots were referred to USAAF psychiatrists when they told this story.
The USN had a similar program using B-24's guided by Lockheed PV-1 controller aircraft. Neither program did any significant damage to the Germans, although the USAAF accidentally blew up a squad of Germans who broke into a crashed missile to capture the crew, and the USN managed to kill Joe Kennedy, JFK's older brother.
