A study of missile guidance by pigeon pecking has been taken out from under wraps by the Navy. At the same time, perhaps to calm fears of guidance designers, the Navy made clear that the project has been discontinued. Started during World War Ⅱ, Project Orcon (for organic control) was a tryanything approach to solving some then-current problems. Guidance systems for homing missiles were being easily countermeasured and the Navy thought animals might have potential as a jam-proof control element. Pigeons were selected for trial because they were light, easily obtainable and adaptable. Their job was to ride inside a missile and peck at an image of a target picked up by a lens in the missile's nose. The pigeon's pecking of the target image was translated into an error signal that corrected the simulated missile's simulated flight.
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