OCR Text |
Show NEW DEVICE GUIDES PLANE THROUGH FOG Contrivance Adaptation of Plan Used During War. Clilcago. A new device designed to guide airplanes through darkness and fog, the bugaboos of all airmen, was given its first puhllc demonstration recently re-cently by Its Inventor, Earl 0. Hanson, at the Ford Transport exhililt In the One Hundred snd Thirty-first regiment armory. The demonstration followed a year of secret tests conducted at the Ford airport at Lansing, III., where planes oslng the new equipment Installed there were directed through bod weather and brought to the ground through the use of the invisible "pilot" Inventor Is Chlcagoan. Mr. Hanson, a Chlcagoan, explained that the new contrivance Is an adaptation adap-tation of the device used by the allies during the war to tap the enemies' wires. It is now being used In harbors har-bors to' guide ships along treacherous channels and through thick fcg, be said. Aviation experts who Inspected the miniature device Installed at the armory arm-ory proclaimed it one of the foremost developments in the efforts being made to combat the dangers of flying In conditions of poor visibility, a source of peril for air travelers. Mr. Hudson's device Is based on the principle of electro-magnetic Induction. Induc-tion. Two series of energized cables are laid on the ground leading to an airport The cables are parallel and each series gives off a signal code, one a series of dashes and the other a series of dots, so that a pilot flying Into a fogbound field picks up a continuous con-tinuous signal by flying a middle path between the cables. This signal grows tn Intensity until the plane reaches the edge of the field where another loop of cables, called the "gun coll," gives the signal to cut motors and glide to a I muling. Besides providing a steady nnd continuous con-tinuous directional signal, the cable also gives the pilot an exact reading of his actual height above the ground a distinct Improvement over the present altimeter. The altitude nnd directional readings may be transmitted transmit-ted to the pilot by head phones, calibrated cali-brated " meter or by a system of lights on the Instrument hoard. Adds to Directional Beacon, Last year saw the development of the radio directional beacon for guld- Ing pilots along the air lines, hut there previously has been no simple, dependable depend-able meuns evolved to direct the flyer through thick fog to a landing after he has arrived over the airport of his destination. , The cable system Is not limited to its use to airport approaches, according accord-ing to the Inventor. He explained that through the aid of cables laid across country, pilots will be able to follow a course over the most treacherous treach-erous mountains, being able to keep to a direct course and at a safe altitude by the continuous Invisible path set up by slgnnls. |