Beams Wanted

You can't throw away an empty whiskey bottle without hitting somebody who's just invented a blind-landing system. So says Irving Metcalf, senior aeronautical engineer of the U. S. Bureau of Air Commerce. Mr. Metcalf himself has designed a practical instrument landing device. And, according to an article, "Under the Weather," published this week in FORTUNE, there are about ten dependable blind-landing systems, including "Air-Track" (TIME, Feb. 7).

Many delays, re-routings, cancellations and accidents result not from port-to-port flight through bad weather, but from hazards of landing when the destination has been reached. FORTUNE reports that some airmen therefore hope that universal application of a workable blind-landing system would increase commercial air traffic as much as 500%. Reasons why this development has not yet been made: Airlines cannot afford field equipment ($25,000 to $40,000 per field); the Bureau of Air Commerce is authorized by the Air Commerce Act of 1926 to spend Government money for beacons and beams between airports but not at airports. If Congress makes a happy landing with some such legislation as the Hildebrandt Bill, now languishing in a House committee, the U. S. will pay for landing units at all important fields, and airlines will need to install only about $1,000-worth of receiving instruments in each plane.

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