GUIDE TO AIRMEN

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 49, 29 June 1928, Page 2

GUIDE TO AIRMEN

NEW RADIO DEVICE. A lighthouse of the ether to guide aeroplanes by visual radio had its first public exhibition recently at College Park, Md., outside Washington, U.S.A., and William P, McCracken, Jr., Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, and others, after trial flights, declared it marxed a new and important advance in making ayzation safe, The device is mounted on an aeroplane lashboard to receive signals telling whether the aeroplane is on its course. Dr. J. H. Dallinger, who, with Harridan Pratt and F. W. Dunmore, of the Government Burean of Standards, have developed the instrument which is the outcome of about eight years’ experiments, announced later that the Pitcairn and National Air Transport Companies were instlling machines to be in operation on the New York-Atlanta, and Cleveland-New York route by May 1. To Be Installed Elsewhere. The signal system, they said, will eventually be installed along all federal air routes. Officials witnessing the experiment declared they were delighted with results, explaining that the instrument marks an invisible but infallible course along which aviators can fly in rain, hail, snow or fog, despite visibility. While the 70-foot tower sent out its stream of directional signals by radio a de Haviland aeroplane, piloted by Captain R. I. Meredith and carrying first W. W. Chalmers (R.), Representative from Ohio, and later Mr. MacCracken, swept the countryside, during which time twin indicators on the aeroplane’s instrument board, housed in a case no larger than a matchbox, interpreted the radio waves in terms gf visual signals, telling the flyers whether they were on their course and, if not, by how much they were off. ‘The device has a range of 150 smiles.