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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 2253.PDF
AUGUST 12, 1937. FLIGHT. 169 Commercial Avfation " L~- SB J^P^SyBBliS^ilill: One of Swissair's two Douglas D.C.3S with the Dubendorf terminal building in the background. Behind the tail of the machine is the open-air public restaurant. THE MODERN TOUCH How the Technique of Transport Flying is Changing : Swissair as an Example DESPITE the.pathetic wailings of those who cannot become accustomed to the idea of radical change which, in particular, involves a dependence on mechanism rather than muscle, the entire technique of transport flying is slowly but surely being modified. The need for absolute regularity alone has involved the use of new methods of navigation, and the appearance of thp high-speed transport, with its specialised flying characteristics, has finally put an end to the old order of things. It is no longer possible to fly by half-and-half methods —one eye cocked at what can be seen of the landscape and the other at a few half-trusted scientific devices. Either one's equipment is such as to be trusted explicitly or one might just as well stay on the ground. Trees, church steeples and mountains are fixed and final obstructions to any rule-of-thumb flying at three miles a minute. Those operators and pilots who want to see just how modern air transport work can be carried out might well use the Swissair Company as their model. Other companies probably have equipment which is equally up to date and use training methods which are equally thorough, but Swissair has the advantage of being a comparatively small concern and most of the organisation is neatly centralised at Dubendorf Airport, Zurich, which is managed by Mr. Bettge. Furthermore, the local conditions are such that really accurate navigation and approach work at the Swiss terminal are essential for safety, and no effort has been spared in the endeavour to keep the necessary equipment as up to date as it is possible to be. After Tempelhoi, where the original experiments were carried out, Zurich, for instance, was the first airport to be equipped with the Lorenz ultra-short-wave approach system and this appears to have worked well during the last two years or so. Another interior view of the radio station showing the " controlled zone'' equipment with the Lorenz repeater on the right. In the issue of February 20 last year the company's equip ment and methods were fully described, but since that time a new radio centre has been built and equipped with the very latest material, and two Douglas D.C.35, with a diesel- engined Junkers 86, have been added to the fleet. The radio centre alone is worth careful investigation, with its indirect lighting to reduce all possible interference, its spacious layout and its traffic control arrangement. Blind Approach |n the new radio station at Dubendorf : working the outside" D/F equipment with its device for combating night error. The QBI approach line to Dubendorf is 325 deg. True (QDM 151 deg. Mag.), a direction chosen because of the reasonable flatness of the country passed over, the length or run available on the airport itself and the fact that the approach is started from the Rhine valley, which can, if necessary, be followed from Basle. On this line, starting backwards from the south-east boundary of the airport, is the main approach beacon, a thousand yards of landing area, the two-storey terminal building (already overcrowded), the second marker beacon, the D/F station, the first marker beacon, an auxiliary medium-wave beacon and the main transmitting station—the last two at Kloten, four miles from the aerodrome. Whether a pilot is coming in on bearings by the ZZ system, by means of his own D/F and homing equip ment, or on the ultra-short-wave beam, his approach is made on 151 deg. Mag. Could anything be more perfect than that ?
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