RADIO TELEPHONE IN SAILPLANE

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28157, 21 December 1956, Page 11

RADIO TELEPHONE IN SAILPLANE

SET BEING INSTALLED AS EXPERIMENT

The new Skylark 111 sailplane which was recently imported into Canterbury may be the first glider in the province equipped with radio. The installation of a high frequency radio telephone set in the sailplane is now proceeding, but official sanction from the Post and Telegraph Department for its use is still awaited. Mr S. H. Georgeson. who is a member of the syndicate which owns the sailplane, said that use of radio in the sailplane would be wholly experimental. One of its main purposes would be to make contact with the airfield control tower to check on aircraft movements when the glider was flying through cloud. It would also be in communication with another set on the ground installed in his private car. The equipment has been specially built by Mr P. A. G. Howell, a communications technician of the National Airways Corporation in Christchurch. It is an adaptation of radio telephone equipment that he has designed for small ships and aircraft and its development goes back to about 1948 when he worked on this type of communication for agricultural aircraft. The set in the glider weighs only seven and a half pounds and measures about eight inches by four inches by six inches. Its power output is about one watt but the ground set has an output of about 25 to 30 watts. Its range is unknown but it is hoped that it will reach up to about 200 miles.