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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 1329.PDF
AUGUST I4TH, 1947 FLIGHT 155 SHORT-DISTANCE AIDS TO NAVIGATION Australian Developments in Distance-measuring and Multiple-track Range Equipment ONE of the greatest problems of civil aviation is thatof air traffic control around the major airports. The4 provision of a really adequate short-distance aid to ». avigation, to guide the movement of aircraft entering or "eaving such airports, would go far towards the solution of the problem. Opinions differ on the exact form such an aid should take, but there is a majority opinion in favour of providing a set of radial tracks along which aircraft can fly, and a continuous measurement of distance to or from the airport. A navigational aid of this type can he described as a polar co-ordinate system with the airport as centre. It is customary to define the polar co-ordinates by two pieces of equipment, a radar distance indicator and some form of radial track guide or omni-directional radio range. An interesting example has been developed in Australia and is at present undergoing operational trials on the Sydney-to-Melbourne air route. The route is served by three sets of ground stations at Melbourne, Sydney and Yass, as shown in Fig. 1. In a final system there would be a fourth station filling the gap between Melbourne and Yass. In this system, the polar co-ordinates are obtained by the combination of distance-measuring equipment and a multiple-track range of special characteristics. The dis- tance-measuring equipment gives a measure of the distance, in miles, to any selected radar beacon along the route, while the multiple-track range provides up to sixty tracks, along any one of which the pilot may fly by following a left- right dashboard indicator. Both aids operate on VHF and are, therefore, limited in range to radio line-of-sight, Fig. 2. The tem- porary distance- measuring equip- ment beacon at Essendon Airport, Melbourne. T^E work described in this article has been done during a period ofnegj^j^o years by the Radiophysics Dixisum of the Australia^^%jncjifor Saeritjfic and indasinai^B^earc^in collaboration with the Australian Department of Civil Aviation, h is contributed to " Flight" at the special request of Dr. E. G. Bowen, chief of the Radiophysics Division. (tEEOSMLE TOORAWEENAH BAR Fig. I. The coverage pro- vided by the distance- measuring equipment and the multiple-track range JLCOOTA on the Sydney-Melbourne air route. but of course they are unaffected by interference fromatmospherics. The distance-measuring equipment works on well-known radar principles and is a development of the wartime Rebecca-Eureka system, in which a -single meter on the dashboard replaces the cathode-ray tube and operator. The multiple-track range is a development of Gee but, unlike Gee, the ground stations are placed only three to ten .
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