SAFER FLYING

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 39, 9 November 1938, Page 5

SAFER FLYING

Modern Radio Aids

EXAMPLE FOR AUSTRALIA The tact that seven ultra-shortwave radio beacons, intended to secure greater safety in flying, are ready in Australia, but cannot be used because they Have not yet been tested by the Civil Aviation Board, is typical of the backward policy of the authorities in connection with almost all phases of aviation, says an aviation correspondent in the ".Sydney .Morning Herald.’’ When one considers the remarkable progress made in other parrs of the world. Ilie slowness of development in Australia is extraordinary. The delay in introducing suitable radio aids for airmen oil the Australian routes is emphasised when it is recalled Unit the first wireless beacon for aircraft erected iu tliis country was instalk'd near .Mascot aerodrome and ollicially opened by Sir Arehdale Tarkhill on April 27. 1936. and another beacon at. .Melbourne has been completed for more than 12 months. ft has been pointed out on numerous occasions that Hying machines and their equipment to-day are almost completely reliable, and that the chief remaining cause of accident is that of human error; Unfortunately, present-day speeds, the multiplicity of navigational instruments, and difficult weather conditions combine to give the modern pilot more work than he should be asked to do. This is particularly the ease during foggy or stormy weather, when the pilot may be endeavouring to make a final approach to an airport in conditions of bad visibility. Progress Overseas. For this reason any development that will help to make his task easier should be looked upon by the controlling authorities as of the utmost importance, and every effort should be made to have the ultra-short wave radio beacons fully tested and ready for continuous use at an early date. Remarkable progress in the development of radio aids to Hying Inis been made overseas since that day in 1929 when the American pilot. Jimmy Doolittle, made the first "blind" landing in history, using the radio range localizer and its cone of silence as a marker, together with his altimeter. In 19,31 Pilot M. S. Boggs made the first allradio "blind” landing, coming down a radio glide path conforming to the United States Bureau of Standards system. Since that date much time has been spent in making refinements in blind landing systems,, until to-day we have the announcement that the United States Army Air Corps has perfected an automatic landing device that will i probably -be one of the most important contributions in the field of aero- 1 nautical experimentation of till time, 1 and certainly the greatest in the world 1 during the last year. 1

Robot Machines. The claims made are backed up by the Assistant Secretary of Air iu the U.S.A. (.Mr. Louis Johnson), who states: "During the summer of 1937 our pilots at 'Wright Field made more than 50 landings automatically. No pilot’s hands or feet touched the controls, and no manual operations within the plane were necessary. Radio beams through which the plane flew initiated processes on its instruments which controlled its Hying and its landing. Imagine what the universal application of this new and successful device will mean to aviation!

“We will be able to take off and land under conditions of zero visibility. In all kinds of weather, we will be able to use the flying machine, both as a military weapon and as a commercial carrier. To-day 50 per cent, of all air accidents are attributable to bad weather. To-morrow, with the aid of this new automatic device, we will go far beyond the conquest of fog and storm, anil the elimination of the hazards that the hostile elements carry. We will reduce appreciably the hazards of aviation.'’

The device is developed on the principle of coupling radio beams to the automatic pilot and throttle controls, and represents an advance on the radiocontrolled Queen Bee aud Queen Wasp target planes used by the R.A.F. in England for some years.

Although the idea of linking an automatic pilot with radio directiontiudiug equipment has been under development in the United States for some time, Britain produced the first combination of this equipment to be used for practical purposes, and. strangely enough, the machine fitted with this equipment was built for Air Travel and Survey Pty., Ltd., of Sydney, for aerial survey work in New South Wales. By means of the special equipment, this plane is able to fly by itself along a radio beam, or steer itself from an ordinary broadcasting station.

The two companies responsible for the device, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. and the P. B. Deviator Co., are now working along parallel lines to those followed bi the American Army experts, in the hope of reaching a stage of perfection where Hie entire work of flying a machine, from the moment of leaving the ground to that of landing, will be carried out accurately and automatically by some similar device or series of devices.

Another development of radio aids to airmen produced during the last 12 months consists of an automatic SOS device. It is a small radio transmitter, crashproof and tireproof, designed to send out a non-stop call for assistance from the wreck of an aeroplane a Iler a crash. The device was designed by Mr. Anthony Easton, a British research physicist who went to America in 1930.

The. set, which contains two valves, would be fitted into the tail of aeroplanes, which nearly always remain undamaged during a crash, and the jolt would release a pendulum which would start up the mechanical signals which would be transmitted on a wavelength of five metres. A battery would supply sufficient current to keep the signals going for two or three days.

Progress In Germany. German aeronautical engineers have always been well to the fore in any move to increase eflieiem-y. ami the remarkable advance made in radio control and direction finding is illustrated In a story which was widely circulated in England more than 12 mouths ago. The captain of one of the regular Deutsche Luft Hansa airliners was flying over London in a dense fog and wirelessed to Croydon airport asking for permission to land. Me stated that at the moment he was somewhere over Victoria Station.

Permission was granted and the pilot flew blind to the airport, and landed in due course. The control officer was interested to know how the pilot was able to tell that be was over Victoria Station while flying

"blind,” and the pilot replied that Berlin had told him so by radio. The significance of such a stale meat is obvious, and emphasises the problem to be faced by Britain in the event of :t major European war, when enemy bombers would be able to fly over the city at night time, or through dense fog, ami receive instructions from Berlin telling them when they were over their targets. Although this has nothing to do with commercial aviation, it illustrates the advance made in radio control of aircraft. and the progress that may reasonably be expected in the future, and at (lie same time it throws into relief the taridness of the Australian authorities in allowing a dispute about, the cost of chartering a test, plane to hold up the operation of radio beacons on the Australian airlines.