Flush Flash

One of the neatest minor inventions of the war, a new signaling mirror, was announced last week by General Electric. Equipped with a sighting device that works on the same principle as a sextant, the mirror can flash a signal flush on a target as far away as ten miles.

Hunting a distant target with sunbeams reflected from an ordinary mirror is a good deal like trying to pin the tail on the donkey. This glass has a full mirror on its face, a smaller circular mirror on its back, and a sighting cross (A) in the center. To aim it, the signaler faces the mirror toward a point about halfway between the target (the plane) and the sun, and sights the target through the cross. The sun, shining through the sight, makes a cross-shaped spot of light (B) on the signaler's hand. When the mirror is tilted so that the reflection of this spot (C) coincides with the cross itself (A), the signaler has an exact bead on his target.

Made of a special unbreakable glass, the mirror is now being supplied by the hundred to soldiers, sailors and airmen. Example of its usefulness: a sailor adrift off Florida recently got rescued by signaling to a blimp six miles away.

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