Pilots to fly at night, but pilots still needed to maintain visual contact with As aįinal safety device, the requirement for a searchlight to be mounted on airmailĪirplanes was appended to the Post Office's set of requirements. ItĪlso prescribed that all landing fields should be at least 2,000 feet by 1,500įeet (610 meters by 457 meters) to allow plenty of room for landings. Show the proper approach and aircraft wingtip flares for forced landings. To the ground to guide pilots another searchlight projecting into the wind to It established minimum lighting requirements for allĪirmail stations: a 500-watt revolving searchlight, projecting a beam parallel The Postal Service began to focus on safety and reliability as well as onĮxpanding operations. The lone pilot dressed in a leather flight suit who sat in an openĬockpit battling the elements to deliver the mail was romantic but inefficient. Official and emergency fields were lit with green lights while dangerous fieldsīy the mid-1920s the swashbuckling days of airmail operations had begun to To the next field and one to the previous tower, forming an aerial roadway. Besides the rotating beacon, one fixed tower light pointed At night, the beacons flashed in aĬertain sequence so that pilots could match their location to the printed guide Painted on it for daytime identification. (28,968 kilometers) of airway and 1,500 beacons were in place. By June 1927,Ĥ,121 miles (6,632 kilometers) of airways had lights. In 1926, the Aeronautics Branch of the Department ofĬommerce took over responsibility for building lighted airways. On Julyġ, 1924, postal authorities began regularly scheduled night operations over

Worked to complete a transcontinental airway of beacons on towers spaced 15 toĢ5 miles (24 to 40 kilometers) apart, each with enough brightness, orĬandlepower, to be seen for 40 miles (64 kilometers) in clear weather. The Army opened an experimental lighted airway between McCookįield in Dayton, Ohio, and Norton Field in Columbus, a distance of 72 miles Lighted airport boundaries, spot-lit windsocks, and rotating beacons on towers Knightįound his way across the black prairie with the help of bonfires lit by Post Test with his all-night flight to Chicago from North Platte, Nebraska. Bruner began using bonfires and the firstĪrtificial beacons to help with night navigation. These visual landmarks or maps were fine for daytime, but airmailĪrmy Air Service Lieutenant Donald L. Out of their cockpit window for visual landmarks or by using automobile road

Were no navigation aids to help pilots find their way. The Evolution of Airway Lights and Electronic Navigation It was installed in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The long-range military and commercial operations it made possible would help usher in a new age of economic and military opportunity-and uncertainty.The perfection of the Very-High-Frequency Omnidirectional Radio Range (VOR) airways made the four-course radio range obsolete. From 1928 to 1931, a new system of navigation emerged that made long-distance flights safe and reliable. A handful of dedicated inventors worked hard to overcome this problem. These disasters marked a turning point in navigational systems.Įngineers greatly improved aircraft performance between the world wars, but they gave little thought to the challenges of navigation. Even the relatively simple navigational task of crossing the North Atlantic claimed many lives.

But the limitations of navigation technology often proved deadly. Most often remembered as the year Charles Lindbergh flew alone across the Atlantic, 1927 also witnessed other record flights that presented far greater challenges. 1927 was a year of unprecedented attempts to establish new records for long-distance flight.

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