ELIMINATING FOG

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 109, 10 May 1934, Page 12

ELIMINATING FOG

THE "ELECTRODOME"

HIGH CLAIMS MADE

AERIAL DANGER MAY CO

In a recent number of an American aviation journal appears a description of a device, styled the "electrodome," by means of which it is hoped to remove much of the danger to navigation, and especially to aviation, from fog. Like many more new devices of great practical import—that is, if the device even partially fulfils the claims made—it was discovered by an investigator searching for something entirely different.

A Los Angeles scientist and engineer, Mr. William Haight,. was experimenting in the manufacture of artificial fog for the protection of Californian citrus groves when he fbund thaVhe was able to disperse fog much easier than he could create it, and he accordingly turned his procedure inside out, as it were, and worked along a different lino to the development of a device which apparently has satisfied other investigators as being entirely practicable in the dispersal of fog within, a considerable radius of the electrodome tower. The principle is not new, for for some time a parallel system has been used in precipitating dust from smoke in factory flues. THE THEORY OF IT. The theory upon which the Haight system is based is that' the fog stratum consists of positively charged particles of moisture, the ground being negatively charged. The Haight machine impels negative electrostatic charges into the fog about the electrodome. The result is that the positively'charged fog particles rush to the negatively and artificially charged moisture particles (unlike charges attracting) to form water drops that by their weight fall as light rain. The effect, it is stated. staPts closo to the electrodome and gradually works its way back to a distance of approximately one and a half miles, where the effect ceases, at least for the amount of power and the particular number of cycles with which the first electrodome (at. Whittier, about fifteen miles from Los Angeles) was operated. . SMALL AMOUNT OF POWER. ' Tests have shown, states the writer, that the operation of dispersing fog is most effective at about 600,000 cycles, and a very high voltage is used. Confounding the electrical experts is the small amount of power,needed to perform the seeming miracle of fog dispersion, only 4J horse-power being required., The electrical, waves are sent into the atmosphere from electrodes carried on a 130-foot mast. The inventor stated that eight heavy fogs had been ■ worked-on since the tower was erected, and it had never taken more than 22 minutes to roll back the fog a distance of 1} miles, the clearing being bored right through the fog layer till the stars shone through. : VAST FIELD OPEN. It is a big claim, and more than a claim is needed to ensure acceptance, but there is a vast field for a successful device of this type. A fog eliminator at airports would enable pilots to land under any conditions of surrounding fog. With a string of eliminators across country on important air routes ,the dangers of aerial navigation would be reduced to an ordinary contingency. In addition to the vast possibilities in making air transportation safer and better, fog' elimination at seaports would be an -advance of great importance. It is also suggested that the device may have a valuable application, in defence in its ability to "dry up" poison gas. Many of the gases used in civilised warfare must consist in part of moisture, as dry gas rises too rapidly to be effective, against ground troops or civilians. It is stated that the experiments made up to the time of 'writing demonstrated that the electrostatic method is so successful in precipitating moisture-laden t gases that there is good promise of reducing gas attacks of the future to almost total impotence.