Aviation To Music

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 30, 6 January 1939, Page 4

Aviation To Music

-="Record’s" London Reporter —

AT would Beethoven have said had he known that music, no longer exclusively a joy for the spirit and the ear, is being put to practical use as a technical improvement to make air travel safe? It is used to excellent effect in a new device, invented by two French engineers, to improve the security standard of flying. A great number of the accidents of air travel are caused by the diifficulty of judging the ’plane’s distance from the ground when atmospheric conditions are unfavourable, — for instance when there is a fog. lt will be remembered that the catastrophe of the British airship R 101 some years ago came about by a sudden collision with the ground in a fog when it was thought that the airship was flying at several hundred feet above the surface. The instruments'used up till now for the measuring of tie distance of fiying craft from the ground were

all based on the same principle as the barometer, namely, air pressure. Such in:cruments indicate not the airplane’s actual distance from the ground, but the height at which it flies above sea level. It makes no difference whether the ’plane is flying over low ground or over 2 hill; the instrument only shows its height above the sea, and if the pilot loses sight of the ground over which he is flying, or for any reason cannot judge its distance, he has no mechanical control by means of which he can avert an accident in good time. Music, or to be more correét, "musical sound" is now employed in conjunction with a new instrument which indicates the airplane’s actual distance from the ground below. It will be an invaluable improvement to the security of flying, since it registers every change in the distance between the earth and the -’plane, every rise in the ground, 'rezardiess ‘of atmospheric conditions.