CONQUEST OF FOG

Taranaki Daily News, 11 May 1935, Page 22 (Supplement)

CONQUEST OF FOG

GERMAN IDEA FOR AVIATORS. PILOT STRADDLES INVISIBLE BEAM. The last enemy the aeroplane has to conquer is fog. A pilot can take off in fog and fly in it, but he must have clear visibility about the aerodrome where he wishes to land. Clear visibility can never be guaranteed, but a new German invention will give him a wireless substitute. All he will need will be a special wireless ■ reception apparatus weighing about 20 pounds and carried on his plane. This will give him, by wireless signals, as clear a vision of the aerodrome as if he could see it and in some ways clearer. Imagine a picture of the aerodrome as it might be seen if there were no fog to hide it. A wireless transmitter sends out a horizontal beam which we may draw as a line running from end to end of . the aerodrome where it is longest. It is along this line that an approaching aeroplane will do best to land, because it will, then have the longest free run. When an aeroplane is approaching, the pilot hears a continuous note in his earphones, and knows that he is right on the beam. If'to the right of it he hears a series of dots, if to the left a series of dashes. So much for direction; now' as to angle of descent. In the middle of the aerodrome is another transmitter sending out beams in the same direction as the horizontal one but pointing them upward at various angles. The pilot, having first found the horizontal beam for general direction, begins presently to come on one or other of the upward pointing beams. He selects from them one most suited to the gliding angle of his plarte and slips down it to the ground. When he hits one of these gliding beams he is told by a neon light springing up in his magic box accompanied by a sound. He keeps on his own particular beam by pointers which tell him at once if he is a foot too high or too low. The beam down which he slides flattens out when near the ground, so that the pilot flying along it by means of his pointer flattens out also, and makes a happy landing without anxiety. Only fairies can straddle a but the airman will do better—he will straddle a beam that is invisible.