Answers from Germany

Fog had closed in Frankfurt's Rhine-Main Airport one night last week; the administration building's lights could not be seen across the field. Near the runway, in a red and white checkered trailer, three G.I. technicians bent over their separate receivers--Search Scope, Middle Scope, Final Scope.

At 5,000 feet, 18 miles away, Search Scope picked up a moving white dot. It was a C-47 from the U.S. Air Force's Berlin airlift. Carefully watching the calibrations which told him the plane's altitude, speed and distance, the G.I. at Search Scope called over his microphone to the pilot: "Calling Easy Charlie three nine ... You will descend 500 feet a minute ... Fly two five seven degrees . . ."

By now the plane had shown on Middle Scope, whose operator picked up: "Decrease rate of descent to 400 and maintain it constant . . . Lower your landing gear ..." Then Final Scope took over: "Change course to three four eight degrees. You're high on the glide path . . . Level off. Steady . . . You're on the glide path."

Blind Landings. The plane came out of the night, set wheels to concrete. The Army's GCA (ground-controlled approach) had brought another airlift plane safely home.

In the two months since it began, the U.S. airlift--now the world's biggest and busiest airline--had piled up some impressive records. Between June 26 and Aug. 26 it had made 15,853 flights, hauled 100,398 tons of food and other vital supplies to blockaded Berlin. Even more impressive, the planes had shuttled back & forth during the worst summer Germany had seen in years. Despite all the rain, fog and even sleet, GCA had brought the planes in for 850 blind landings without an accident.*

The success of GCA was something for U.S. commercial lines and the Civil Aeronautics Administration to study. Though commercial pilots have generally preferred ILS (instrument landing system) because they control landings themselves, many a commercial pilot on airlift duty has now been won over to GCA. Said one last week: "When I think of all the hours I've spent stacked up in the soup over New York, maybe this is the answer."

If it was, U.S. commercial pilots would be a long time getting it. For one thing, Congress has never appropriated enough money for GCA (which costs about five times as much as ILS). For another, CAA is leary of GCA because of possible Government liability in accidents.

Steady Flying. Of course, Operation Vittles does not have to count its cost ($260,000 daily), as money-losing U.S. commercial airlines do. Still, it may help U.S. commercial operators solve some problems.

By straining the reservoir of U.S. transport planes, it has bolstered the industry's argument that the Government should share the mounting cost of pioneering new transport types. By getting an average eight-hours-per-day out of each of its 192 planes, it has proved what oldtimers like Eddie Rickenbacker have long preached: that the more a plane is used, the better performance it gives. Said Airlift Boss Lieut. General Curtis LeMay last week: "Leave a plane on the ground and it starts deteriorating. But keep it in the air, with regular maintenance, and it thrives on steady and prolonged use."

* Of the airlift's five crashes, five fatalities, none has happened on GCA landings.

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