RADIO PILOTING MARVEL.

Patea Mail, Volume XLIV, 29 November 1920, Page 4

RADIO PILOTING MARVEL.

.SUCCESSFUL TEST,

Sun Francisco, October 2(>.

A. successful test has been made of a wonderful invention which should solve the fog fiend puzzle experienced by mariners, and especially by those whose duty it is to navigate ferry boats when battling against low visi-

bility. It was around New York that the new invention was tested, when Commander H. H. Norton, of the United States Navy, piloted the American destroyer Semmcs through the narrow, devious ways of Ambrose Channel, from the Ambrose light to Fort Lafayette, a distance of 15 miles. Commander Norton performed his difficult task virtully blinded to all intents and purposes, for the glass front of the bridge was completely covered with heavy canvas, and the only thing he had to guide him was the monotonous click of a few dots and dashes repeating over and over again a million times the one word N-A-V-Y. But as long as he heard it he knew ho was on the correct course. If the sound grew slightly faint he turned a little lever right and left, which accentuated or diminished the sound. That showed him that he was proceeding either to the right or left of the centre o f the channel. With this information he was then enabled to turn the ship’s nose in the proper direction again.

Vast tlio dangerous head in the channel just off Roamer Shoals, whore many a pilot had met disaster. Commander Norton guided the Semmes as straight as a die along the centre of the ship’s roadbed. Then, approaching Lafayette with hundreds of ships of all descriptions on every side, ho continued triumphantly on his sightless way. This radio piloting cable system was the invention of Earl C. Hanson, a boyish 28-year-old man from Los Angeles, California. The test was arranged by Commander IL F. McConnell, in charge of the I.T.S. Government’s radio system, and was witnessed by a soore of other naval officers, expert electricians and 'engineers.