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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0343.PDF
FEBRUARY 6, 1936. FLIGHT. T5T Private Topics of the Day Radio Again A FORTNIGHT agD I touched rather lightly on the various problems surrounding bad-weather naviga tion in the special case of the private owner or the amateur pilot who has hired a machine. I suggested that some sort of communication system was essential for him if he was not to be kept out of the air on an unreasonable number of days of the year. Obviously, some form of homing device,, for use either with existing broadcasting facilities or with the short wave track beacons which are now being installed at various airports in this country, is not complete in itself. If private owners without two-way radio are to come hurtling down the beam tracks towards crowded aero dromes there is trouble in store for them, and the moral restrictions on their bad-weather travels will be consider ably increased. Only a very small amount of actual information is necessary for his safety and for the safety of the more important air services. Primarily, he must know whether the airport towards which he is heading is under Q.B.I. conditions and, if a landing is permissible, when he may safely enter the area. Broadcast Information IT would seem that the regular weather broadcast from * Daventry might be arranged to include definite state ments on the first point at certain equally definite time intervals—say every half-hour at the half-hour—and the normal homing receiver could then be used to obtain this information. To those who say that the careless owner might not bother to listen in I shall say that there is nothing at all to stop him now from flying into any controlled area without permission and that he values his own life just as highly as he values the lives of air line passengers. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that two-way con versation provides a much more comforting method of obtaining information, and if conditions are not " too W-B.I." he might obtain permission to land during a lull in the arrivals of more important machines. To have to land outside one of the controlled areas— a "d I am visualising an increase in the number of these 15 a natural result of increased air line activity—and to telephone for permission to approach is a very clumsy *av of doing things. After all, the sky might close in *ven while the pilot was walking back across the aero drome to his machine after obtaining the necessary per mission. In any case, it would seem that, eventually, yng instruction will have to cease at certain of the busier nuinal airports. A school which can only carry on in °re or less perfect weather is hardly one at which really Proficient amateur pilots will be turned out. Short'ivave Possibilities F OR small machines the short-wave type of two-way equipment is the immediately obvious solution, since the shorter the wave the smaller and lighter is the neces sary set. Furthermore, as the owner is not usually an electrical engineer, the set would need to be easily operated, with a single tuning dial and a single three-way switch for transmission, reception, and " off." There is nothing very impossible about that, but to whom will the pilot speak? The existing ground stations are designed to work in the region of the normal aero nautical wavelengths and special sets would have to be installed at all the aerodromes and airports, though these sets would not require the services of a professional operator. In the paper which he read last week before the Airpor's Conference, Mr. Roderick Denman, the technical director of Airwork, rightly stressed the value of a close working partnership between the pilot and the control and praised the American system whereby the control officer could speak directly to the pilot even before the machine left the ground. Telegraphy has a number of advantages, but it "can never take the place of actual speech for short- range work while taking off or while landing—when imme diate information may sometimes be essential to the safety of all concerned. - Mr. Denman also suggested the use of short-wave equipment for this purpose, and mentioned, without much enthusiasm, the idea that " refusal of permission to land " signals might be made by switching the approach beacon on and off. The more obvious objections to this course are that the information would then be given at a very late stage in the proceedings and that the incoming pilot might merely imagine that his receiver was at fault—or he might not even bother to imagine anything at all! The Important Owner T HE immediate questions are: Is the private owner worth all this trouble and expense, and will the little bit of available short waveband be jammed with television before anything can be done to aid the owner? I think he is worth all the trouble, and, if a movement is made immediately, the television services may be controlled in time. He is worth the trouble because he is still, to a large extent, the corner stone of the whole flying business, and out of his enthusiasm there often arises the really valuable air transport concerns. If everything is to be left in the hands and minds of the aeronautically impractical financier we may see something within the next few years beside which the South Sea Bubble will appear as a mere—bubble. And if it bursts it will shatter much more than itself. INDICATOR
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