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Show Did Ycu Ever Stop to Think By Edson R. Waite This might well be entitled "From Covered Wagon Trails To Lighted Skyways." Few people, indeed, appreciate the part electricity plays in modern aviation. Now and then one sees a lone beacon flashing its friendly message and a lighted emergency landing field, while traveling over our high ways. Few people appreciate the significance of these new lighted sentinels of safety for the air lanes in the clouds. I asked an engineer friend to draw an accurate picture pic-ture of Oklahoma as it would be seen from the air at night. The finished product would take your breath away. Theoretically, if you were high enough in the air a.riH a limit, tn rvnss the TI.P.A River fvnt.firincr Okla homa from the south, you would see a path of light cutting directly up and down the state from Marietta, through Ardmore, Sulpher, Pauls Valley, Norman, Oklahoma Ok-lahoma City, Guthrie, and on up into Kansas. Beacons, emergency landing fields and radio signal stations have made night flying safe and comfortable, particularly in hot weather. Another pathway of light cuts across the state in the northwest corner from Shattuck to Alva. Another glowing glow-ing white streak enters the state from the west and crosses on its way to St. Louis and the East. It is deeply interesting when one stops to think about tlris north and south lighted skyway across the state of Oklahoma. It closely borders the old Chisholm Trail, over which thundering herds of Texas cattle were brought north for shipping from the old Kansas cattle towns of frontier days. The path of light in the Northwest section of the state closely follows the old Santa Fe Trail, where covered cov-ered wagons laboriously pushed on to San Diego and the "West Coast, All of this within the memory of many living men! Lighted skyways are only typical of the Nation at large. If one could rise high enough in the sky he would see the Nation crisscrossed with lighted pathways path-ways guiding planes and passengers to a safe landing. T-Todern electric service from your electric company has done for the aeronautical industry what it has done for all modern industries. Thousands of things which electricity has made commonplace today were undreamed undream-ed of yesterday. |