Scout943
Blackhawk
Whats that arrow pointing to ? http://www.dreamsmithphotos.com/arrow/giant.html
POSTAL HISTORY
- Thread starter Scout943
- Start date
Bob Wright
Hawkeye
Unfortunately they are not followed today. I got a package last Saturday, May 30, marked "time sensitive." The package was mailed January 3, 2015.
Bob Wright
Bob Wright
Rick Courtright
Hawkeye
Hi,
Saw a TV program about the arrows a couple of years ago. Pretty interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing it again...
Rick C
Saw a TV program about the arrows a couple of years ago. Pretty interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing it again...
Rick C
I take it they didn't fly at night.
Critch
Single-Sixer
Boy Scouts used to paint arrows on the top of barns for aircraft. Generally it was their Eagle Project.
Re: Navigational history close to home. Old VOR stations. I have an old VOR transmitter about 1.5 miles from me. It was called Scurry VOR. I recall as a teenager when I first started flying (much later then Wyandot) that Blue Ridge and Scurry VOR were awesome for doing my cross countries into East Texas. These little VOR stations were crucial to my navigation into Tyler TX., back up to Texarkana and then back to Grayson County airport. They are rubble now, the one just up the road from me is hardly recognizable as a inverted ice cream cone. Ya know what is weird, our SWA jets still fly the route as if the station is still there. They fly right over my house at around 12,000 feet. I know this because I have seen my house (more the shop) and have mentioned to the flight crew, There's my house. Yes, I still ride cockpit.
Karl
Karl
Cooperhawk
Buckeye
In 1980 I and another gentleman were tasked by the FAA to develop, write, and teach a two year curriculum on FAA History. We performed this task and then turned the course over to several colleges where it is still being taught today.
The FAA was originally the CAA, or Civil Aeronautics Administration. The first navigation of course was called Pilotage or in other words the pilots figured out their own route. They used their compass, landmarks, bon fires at night, or those giant arrows. The main users of those arrows were the Air Mail Service, but the Air Mail Service lost so many pilots that the President ordered the Army to take over and fly the Air Mail. It was then decided to develop a better means of navigation.
The first electronic navigation was made up of Non Directional Beacons, or NDBs. These were spaced at intervals along a route that led from city to city. To make navigation easier certain routes were then named as Airways. In the cockpit the pilot had an instrument, called ADF, or Ariel Direction Finder, that tracked the radio beam emitted by the NDB and an arrow pointed to it's direction from the aircraft. These routes were then identified as Blue one, or Red two, ect. Today they are called Victor Airways, or Jet Airways.
NDBs had one flaw. The further you were away from the device, the greater the allowance for error. In other words if you were receiving the NDB, you still could not pin point your location until over the NDB itself. They were also pretty short ranged depending on altitude.
The next step up was the VOR, or Variable Omni Range Navigation Device. This device generated a signal that was incremented in 360 degrees, and the AC could devine it's location by which radial it was receiving, but the pilot could still not pin point his position. Still later DME, Distance Measuring Equipment, was added to the VOR giving the pilot his first fairly good pin point measuring device. There still were inaccuracy's depending how far the AC was from the VOR.
The Military in the meantime developed their own system called TACAN, or Tactical Air Navigation. Many TACANs were co-located with VORs but only put out a signal when queried by the device in the military AC. In that way in time of war the VORs could be shut down and the TACANs would not work for the enemy AC.
From these simple devices by today's standards we developed through R-Nav, which involved Inertial Navigation using gyros and computers to what we use today, satellite Navigation. Today's cockpit looks like something out of Star Wars. No more gauges, but several MFDs, or Multi Functional Displays that display moving maps ect. It's been years now since I flew on a cockpit ride so I'll bet they're even more stunning than I remember.
ATC, or Air Traffic Control was developed, I'm going to say because it's been a long time since I taught this, in the thirties after a particular bad mid air collision. The four major airlines, TWA, AA, EA all met in Hanger 6 at what is now Reagan Airport and began developing the system.
At first it consisted of each airliner radioing in to their company their position as they passed over Nav devices and then the company calling the newly established ATC Facitlity with the report. Each AC could then be plotted along a route and an estimated time over the next Nav device gave the controllers a means of separating AC by time, distance, fix.
Company Radio was replaced by Flight Service Stations, FSS, and the Control Centers were eventually moved into their own buildings usually far from the airport. The Control Centers were then designated as ARTCCs, or Air Route Traffic Control Centers. The last I knew there were twenty one of them. A lot of the old FSSs are being closed as electronics and better communications make them obsolete. A few still remain.
When we first introduced radar into the mix we were astonished to find that the old airway system was very unreliable. AC would report a position based on the Nav Aids and be far off course. Radar revolutionized Air Traffic Control just as computers have today.
Today's system is extremely complicated but works extraordinarily well. My last year in the Minneapolis ARTCC we handled well over a million AC operations with only six or seven of what we called errors, and errors do not involve AC coming that close. We set standards and anything that fails that standard is an error even if the Air Crew know nothing about it.
It continues to develop.
The FAA was originally the CAA, or Civil Aeronautics Administration. The first navigation of course was called Pilotage or in other words the pilots figured out their own route. They used their compass, landmarks, bon fires at night, or those giant arrows. The main users of those arrows were the Air Mail Service, but the Air Mail Service lost so many pilots that the President ordered the Army to take over and fly the Air Mail. It was then decided to develop a better means of navigation.
The first electronic navigation was made up of Non Directional Beacons, or NDBs. These were spaced at intervals along a route that led from city to city. To make navigation easier certain routes were then named as Airways. In the cockpit the pilot had an instrument, called ADF, or Ariel Direction Finder, that tracked the radio beam emitted by the NDB and an arrow pointed to it's direction from the aircraft. These routes were then identified as Blue one, or Red two, ect. Today they are called Victor Airways, or Jet Airways.
NDBs had one flaw. The further you were away from the device, the greater the allowance for error. In other words if you were receiving the NDB, you still could not pin point your location until over the NDB itself. They were also pretty short ranged depending on altitude.
The next step up was the VOR, or Variable Omni Range Navigation Device. This device generated a signal that was incremented in 360 degrees, and the AC could devine it's location by which radial it was receiving, but the pilot could still not pin point his position. Still later DME, Distance Measuring Equipment, was added to the VOR giving the pilot his first fairly good pin point measuring device. There still were inaccuracy's depending how far the AC was from the VOR.
The Military in the meantime developed their own system called TACAN, or Tactical Air Navigation. Many TACANs were co-located with VORs but only put out a signal when queried by the device in the military AC. In that way in time of war the VORs could be shut down and the TACANs would not work for the enemy AC.
From these simple devices by today's standards we developed through R-Nav, which involved Inertial Navigation using gyros and computers to what we use today, satellite Navigation. Today's cockpit looks like something out of Star Wars. No more gauges, but several MFDs, or Multi Functional Displays that display moving maps ect. It's been years now since I flew on a cockpit ride so I'll bet they're even more stunning than I remember.
ATC, or Air Traffic Control was developed, I'm going to say because it's been a long time since I taught this, in the thirties after a particular bad mid air collision. The four major airlines, TWA, AA, EA all met in Hanger 6 at what is now Reagan Airport and began developing the system.
At first it consisted of each airliner radioing in to their company their position as they passed over Nav devices and then the company calling the newly established ATC Facitlity with the report. Each AC could then be plotted along a route and an estimated time over the next Nav device gave the controllers a means of separating AC by time, distance, fix.
Company Radio was replaced by Flight Service Stations, FSS, and the Control Centers were eventually moved into their own buildings usually far from the airport. The Control Centers were then designated as ARTCCs, or Air Route Traffic Control Centers. The last I knew there were twenty one of them. A lot of the old FSSs are being closed as electronics and better communications make them obsolete. A few still remain.
When we first introduced radar into the mix we were astonished to find that the old airway system was very unreliable. AC would report a position based on the Nav Aids and be far off course. Radar revolutionized Air Traffic Control just as computers have today.
Today's system is extremely complicated but works extraordinarily well. My last year in the Minneapolis ARTCC we handled well over a million AC operations with only six or seven of what we called errors, and errors do not involve AC coming that close. We set standards and anything that fails that standard is an error even if the Air Crew know nothing about it.
It continues to develop.
