Beam Landing

For about four years blind flying, now called instrument flying, has been a commonplace of U. S. air transport. Day after day planes ride the waves of radio beacons, staying unerringly on course when the pilot can see nothing beyond the cockpit window. But the radio beacon can guide a plane only to a point above its destination. If the airport is hidden by fog or sleet, the plane may crash. Hence the Government still forbids a passenger plane to fly into an airport where the ceiling is under 500 ft.

Last week at Newark Airport the Department of Commerce gave to air transport a device on which it had been at work for five years, to overcome the blind landing hazard. It consists of 1) a runway localizing beacon and 2) a radio beam along which the plane may glide to a three-point landing.

In a swirling snowstorm Pilot James L. Kinney of the Commerce Department flew a Curtiss Fledgling several miles from the field, pulled a hood over his cockpit, then headed back. As would any airline pilot, he followed the radio beacon toward the airport by watching a needle on a dial and by listening to the blend of dots & dashes in his earphones. Buzzing louder& louder as he neared the field, the dots & dashes suddenly stopped. That, the pilot knew, marked the "blind spot" directly over the beacon itself, hard by the airport.

Pilot Kinney swung his plane into a wide counterclockwise turn, simultaneously switched his radio to a different frequency. Presently his earphones and instrument dial picked up beacon signals again. These came from the runway beacon, which is simply a miniature of the big airway beacon. They told him he was headed straight for the length of the run-way.* Here the ingenious ''landing beam" began to work. Crossing the vertical needle on the beacon dial is a horizontal needle which swings up & down. If the plane is too high for its proper glide the needle swings up; if the plane is too low, down goes the needle. Pilot Kinney's job was to keep it centred, neatly bisecting the runway needle. Also he had to keep his ears alert for a shrill "Be-e-e-ep!" in his earphones. That meant: "You are now 1,000 ft. from the field boundary. Throttle down." On he went, eyeing his needles, until he heard another "Be-e-e-ep!", lower pitched, meaning: "Edge of the field! Cut the motor!" By this time the pilot could see the ground in any kind of weather.

The beacon is to be left at Newark for airlines to test the needed new equipment (a 15-lb. receiver for the landing beam) and for airline pilots to get practice. It constitutes the magnum opus of Col. Clarence Marshall Young, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, whose routine resignation was on file last week, and his first aide, Col. Harry Harmon Blee. He was ready to demonstrate it last month when his test pilot, Marshall S. ("Maury") Boggs, who had made innumerable blind landings, crashed to death in broad daylight on a joyhop in California.

Besides the landing beam, Col. Young may look back with pride on: drafting and administering, without precedent, regulations for manufacturers, operators, pilots, schools; development of a 19,500-mi. airway system with lights and radio beacons, intermediate fields at 50-mi. intervals, 13,500 mi. of teletype for weather reporting; development of a method of lining fuel tanks to reduce fire hazard in crashes; discovery of sound-insulating materials for cabin walls.

Last week Col. Young issued what, barring the slim possibility of reappointment, was his last official order. It required private pilots to log 50 hours solo flight before taking their friends for a hop.

Last week the Department of Commerce published the airway accident record for last year. Scheduled airlines flew 50,900,000 mi.--3,500,000 more than in 1931. There were 115 crashes, eleven less than in 1931. Miles flown per accident: 442,800. Of the 115 accidents, 17 were fatal. Passengers killed: 25--one less than the year before. Passenger-miles flown per passenger death: 5,860,000, compared to 4,610,000 in 1931.

Test Hazard (Cont'd)

Last month Stinson Aircraft Corp. lost its chief test pilot, chief & assistant engineers in the crash of a new plane they were testing (TIME, Feb. 20). Last week at the Bellanca plant at New Castle, Del. Chief Test Pilot Stuart Chadwick took aloft a new fighter which Bellanca had built for the Navy. Pilot Chadwick had to show how it would come out of a tailspin, with, a heavy 14-cylinder engine in its nose. Several times he made two-turn and three-turn spins. To make the demonstration more impressive Pilot Chadwick tried four turns, five, six. . . . Then he saw he could not bring it out. He climbed out of the cockpit, jumped; but his 'chute fouled the twisting fuselage. Pilot Chadwick, a flyer for 16 years, died.

*Still another dial registers the plane's approximate distance in miles from the runway -beacon.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.