AIR CONTROL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 695, 22 November 1933, Page 7

AIR CONTROL

| ZONE SYSTEM PREPARED FOR USE AT | CROYDON. j i ELABORATE PRECAUTiONS. t London, October 13. A scheme for controlling aireraft . traffic at Croydon aerodrome during foggy weather is shortly to be put into operation, at first on a voluntary , hasis, but later compulsorily. I The operating companies, British , and foreign, have acquiesced in the i scheme, which was described by Ma- ; jor R. H. S. Mealing, Chief Technical | Assistant, Civil Aviation, Air Minis- | try, in a paper read before the Royal I Aeronautical Society last night. j When visibility is only 1000 yards | horizontal and 1000 feet vertical, or j less, the zone system will automati- | cally come into foree, and all aireraft j will, so far as it is possible, be noti- | fied by wireless. It is expeeted that 1 pilots who cannot he so informed will | judge for themselves as to the con- ! ditions, and will act accordingly. The zone is approximately an area ■of ten miles round Croydon, and within that area aireraft will, during the operation of the scheme, he permitted to fly only with the permission of the control officer. No Prescribed Route. ■ No attempt will be made to instruct .aireraft to follow a certain route only so long as they do not endanger any other machine, and,' failing their ability to do so, they will be ordered to lay-off the zone until such time as some other route is permissible. No outgoing aireraft will be permitted to leave Croydon except in such manner as to make it impossible to endanger any incoming machine. Priority must, of eourse, always be given to the aireraft in flight, and that is why absolute control must he exercised over the departing aireraft, and not over the incoming* one. Major Mealing stated that there have been occasions when as many as twenty machines have been approaching Croydon at the same time, so that it has been no easy matter to ' sort them out and to communicate directions to them. There have also been occasions when there has been serious congestion at Lympne. There are in existence apparatus and control systems which make it possible to control the movements of aireraft in flight in thick fog with great precision, and which enable them .even to take off and land in thick fog. But they have not yet been brought to such perfection as to ■enable them to operate with complete success when many aireraft are flying on the same route at th'e same time.