IN LETTERS OF FIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 19

IN LETTERS OF FIRE.

NIGHT SKY SIGNS MILES IN LENGTH. Brilliant electrical devices which, from roof-tops and buildings, attract tbe gaze of night promenaders in great cities are to be eclipsed by signs In letters of fire three miles ln length, at heights of three miles and more above our heads, says the "Dally Chronicle." Secret experiments of a fascinating kind are nearing completion. Marvellously ingenious winged machines, pilotless and yet capable of launching themselves and of returning to earth again without a human hand nt their controls, are to | rise at night, guided by wireless, till they soar, unheard and unseen, at immense heights over centres of population. Then, by the touch of a key at earthstations, wireless operators will set the machines at their nightly tasks. By an apparatus ln the planes similar to the perforated paper-rolls used ln automatic piano-players, tbe machines will execute with absolute precision a series of evolutions In the air. And these manoeuvres, predetermined by the perforations ln the roll—operating a mechanism which actuates tbe control-sur-faces—will enable the plane to emit, as lt wheels and turns, ceaseless streams of brilliantly-luminous smoke, to write across the sky, time after time, any chosen word or series of words. [ Once, ln fact, they have been guided to a ; high altitude and their mechanism set ln motion, these machines will go on spelling out, over and over again, the gigantic advertisements we shall see extending across tbe night sky. Will such night users of the air be called upon to pay fees for their enormous "advertising spaces"? This Is the Interesting question already asked. | Humorists suggest that there may be employed special Inspectors who will ascend In aeroplanes to measure tbe great Illuminated signs, so that an account for the precise air space used can be rendered to advertisers. They, however, declare that as tbe sky may be so lit up by winged advertisement writerß that street-lighting will be nlmost I unnecessary, no charges should be made for the aerial "spaces" utilised.