There are 4 concrete beacon arrows in the St George, Utah area. The towers are long gone, but the arrows themselves are still in good condition. Some day I want to take a trip and visit as many of these as possible.
Excellent! In the early 1950's I read the book "Pilot Jack Knight" and vowed to become a pilot and many years later retired as one! It was very exciting to me when you mentioned him as he was such a valuable pioneer to what we have today. Thanks so much for sharing and the very best of luck!
Thanks. I'll look for the book. Jack Knight was one of those wonderful characters of aviation's Golden Age. Well, when you realize the flying conditions the pioneers had it was maybe not so golden. Even the advance of the DC-3 was less than golden at times. One old-timer said there was always the odor of vomit in the cabin : -) When I hear people today complain of their airline trip I laugh to myself.
They would not have used acetylene tanks. Until relatively recently, acetylene was produced as needed using a carbide/water reactor. To this day, Union Carbide is a major industrial chemical producer.
Thank you for the video. Love these bird eye views of the rich history in our area. I've seen a couple arrows and towers out near the Humboldt Sink and have wanted to check out Fernley's. That is in great condition!
Thank you. It took years to find the Fernley Intermediate Airfield site. Some maps showed it on the wrong side of the freeway. Old timers just had vague ideas of where it was. I have circled around the area with an old pilot who thought he saw the airfield years ago, with no results.There is so little left of aviation history. Get photos of what you find. It will be gone.
You can find another of the concrete arrows this one pointing East at Troy California If you go to maps and search for Troy California follow Troy road up to the railroad and then track West to abandoned Tunnel 40 You will see a collection of radio towers above the old tunnel and the remnants of a concrete arrow pointing East it has deteriorated quite a bit in the last 20 years since I 1st located it
The concrete arrows an towers were built by the commerce department in the 1920-30’s, for air mail navigation. The arrows were 30 to 50 miles apart, an the arrow pointed twords where the next arrow was going east. Durning WW2, most of the arrows were destroyed, so enemy’s couldn’t use them to navigate.
My father, growing up in the 1930's had a cheap pulp magazine that was falling apart by the time I handled it in the 1960's. The back cover was a ad for Camel cigarettes. "I fly the night mail. I smoke Camels." Transcontinental flight became partly due to Elway? Jeppesen. One of those original "I fly the night mail" pilots. He started making maps and today his descendant company is a major player in aeronautical maps. The Denver International Airport is named after him. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeppesen
Funny ad. But they needed a cigarette and a swig of whiskey to self-medicate. During WWII crews were smoking in aircraft that wreaked of fuel vapors. As a teenager in the 1960's I knew a man who was a flight engineer in a B-25. By the sixties smokers were becoming aware of the danger of smoking. He told me they knew cigarettes were bad in the 1940's too. He said, "Yeah, but since everybody was trying to shoot our lungs out we didn't worry about having a smoke."
I understand the four in line beacons that existed on the south shore on Lake Michigan, between Gary and Michigan City Indiana, were dismantled decades ago. They served to point the way to Chicago's Midway Airport at the time.
To bad they were just considered to be junk. Out in the desert one can find historical traces because nobody cares about these obscure places. But even desert areas are suffering rapid "development."
Just found your channel and want to thank you for the ride along into our not so distant history. I am happy to see that someone is getting these wonderful historic facts on video before they all are gone. Subscribed!
Excellent job finding the concrete pad for Beacon 22! We looked a few years ago and only found an old rusted bucket of the orange paint. We'll have to look again or has the new large building taken it away? I suspect that the beacon tower was moved to Tiger Field on the south end of Fernley. We have found most of the beacon sites and Intermediate Landing Fields - what remains - between 216 and Battle Mountain Intermediate Landing Field. The airmail pioneer pilots were a hardy breed. Thanks for the video.
Since this video was made the area of Fernley Intermediate Landing Field has been obliterated by a large industrial park development. Finding it was one of the hardest searches we had. When I found the orange paint buckets you speak of I knew we finally were close. Even out in the "wastelands" of Nevada it is sad how fast our history is being destroyed. There should be a monument placed on the site. Aviation history is greatly ignored in the West.
Great video. My Great Uncle was too young for WWI so to prove he was as brave as his older brother he became an airmail pilot for a few years. He said after the loss of several friends he decided to enter a more stable position. A Guard at a maximum security prison!
Thank you for sharing this! It was extremely interesting to see your footage of this rare remaining light beacon for the early transcon airmail routes. I knew about the arrows and the beacons, however I never thought I would get to see current footage of one of the beacons. Best regards from Brasilia, Brazil.
Thank you. I imagine Brazil had these too. One of my friends was a World War Two air transport pilot who flew into Natal. His next stop was Dakar, North Africa. Brazil has a great aviation heritage. Still does. Few Americans realize that they could be flying on an Embraer regional airliner here : -)
In my childhood home there was still an acetylene light on the porch. Never saw it working, as there had been electricity from 1932. But what I have concluded is that the acetylene was made of carbide and water on site. There were two cylinders, one apparently for the carbide and the other one much smaller but heavy, apparently for pressurized water, i.e. water & pumped driving air. I also think the light source had contained one of those thorium oxide "socks" that until the LED era used to be giving light on the camping lanterns. Given that the acetylene for welding purposes is dissolved in acetone (safety reasons), I wonder if that might also have been used in the mule carried acetylene tanks to the beacon. Or if the beacons could also have used water and dry carbide?
An amazing video of a part of history not told to school children and it's sad to see that all have gone but a few remaining sites like a lot of America.
In today's schools the teaching of history has become even more stripped of real life than it formerly was. And you are right about the hell-bent destruction of historical sites and historical memory. Even the Intermediate Landing Field site in the video has been totally obliterated by industrial development.
this is much gud. i grew up Papid city, SD. brother joined CAP civil air patrol in the 60's. 1977 a Bolivian photographer hired me to work at Augustana lab for college. He studied to get pilot licence and had been airial recon in viet nam. here in Marfa,Tx is home of old air base all so. a big ranch family's daughter is small pilot here and the county air field brings in rich visitors here. a buddy has helped run/maintance past decade. this is educational on several levels. thans.
Thanks. One of my friends in Vietnam was a Texan. That's where I learned how different, how eccentric and what interesting characters Texans can be : -)
From about 5:20 - 5:30, In the line drawing you can see a tank I think it says 515 gallon tank up against the exterior wall of the hut. …This makes me think that the source of the acetylene gas was water dripping onto carbide granules, as this was a common way to use acetylene gas “in the field“. The simplest AND safest way to extinguish the light during the day would have been for that solar valve to simply close the water supply dripping onto the carbide granules…it might take a few seconds, but there would be no build up of flammable gas. At night, the solar valve could not only restore the flow of water to the carbide granules, but it might also have used some simple mechanical arrangement to move a perpetually lit pilot light (having been previously retracted) back into near proximity to the gas jet, where it would remain until it was time to cycle off again. Exactly how that solar valve worked, I have no clue. That would be an interesting thing to learn. I could be entirely wrong… I did not read this anywhere it’s just what I deduced as being likely with the information given, combined with what little I know about carbide lights. The head mounted lights that miners wore back in the early days burned acetylene that was produced by dripping water on a small canister of carbide crystals. (I don’t know if the technology even existed back then to compress acetylene into a pressurized tank, but even if it did, it’s not a place that I would want to work…). While transporting dry carbide crystals was extremely safe, and with the slow application of water, the gas could be produced at the location it was needed. These worked great where inert ores were being mined, but alternative lighting methods had to be developed for coal mines, as one can imagine what would happen if these open flame lights were introduced to an insufficiently ventilated chamber full of coal dust.
Interesting observations. I know that oxyacetylene welding was used during WWI in aircraft factories. This article says it was invented in 1903. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxy-fuel_welding_and_cutting
There is an arrow at Shelbyville municipal airport in Shelbyville Indiana also there is one southeast toward Cincinnati about 5 to 10 miles. You can see the arrow with google maps
The old timers said navigating with radio range systems was nerve wracking. But better than nothing. We think that we live in a time of rapid technological change. But the 1880's to the 1930's were really years of head-spinning change.
@@malcolmmarzo2461 Yes! My grandmother was born in 1901. She saw the start of: automobiles, airplanes, telephones, electric power in (almost) all homes, radio, television, rockets and satellites, nuclear power and bombs, computers in the home and others before she passed in 1985. I was born in 1954 and, while there have major improvements in most of those things, they are not brand new. When I've thought about it (which I have) the things I can name that are unprecedented in my lifetime are: medical imaging; genetics, genome, CRISPR; and the ability to find nearly any fact immediately with a device in my pocket. I would say the world changed much more dramatically in my grandmother's lifetime than it has in mine.
Excellent! Thank You! I think the acetylene would have been generated on site at the beacon by pouring water on calcium carbide in an chamber. Perhaps the solar valve would start the water each night.
@@malcolmmarzo2461 well A and N was a lot of work. There was a fair amount of skill, required and especially radio range approaches which had surprisingly low minimums in most places ( 300 and1)....The infamous "cone of silence" . They followed with the short lived VAR ( Visual Aural Range) transitioning to the Variable Omini Range nav which was much better liked. I do think Radio Range was better liked than DF and to some extent ADF(NDB) nav.
Thank you for sharing a very informative video. I had no prior knowledge of this program as I have no connection to aviation; but it looks like an interesting topic to study. I have way too much time on my hands. 😉☮️ As an afterthought, this would have been a great subject for PBS History Detectives.
Interesting to see some yellow paint on it. As Orange and white only become required in 1937. Before that colors used were black and yellow or black and white.
Thank you. Whatever the criticisms of UA-cam may be it still has a vast range of content. Like the Internet, it contains the World, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Thank you. When this video was made I was still getting wobbly aerial video, until I finally figured out the best frame rate and resolution. Aerial photography has a lot of technical challenges : -)
Grew up in the 60s and we would attend a flying social club in mcallen texas and one of its members was tex marshall, one of the original airmail pilots. His stories were fabulous, including the one where the government sent him a card saying pilot license, what do i need that for. He wrote an article about retracing thay route late in his life i found online a few years ago.
I'm sure you heard interesting stories - especially colorful when told by a Texan : -) I knew one pilot who flew airmail. I wish that I had a tape recorder or camera then to preserve an oral history then.
Good question. I don't know. Acetylene tanks like we currently use for welding existed then. This beacon was in a difficult place to access. I only got up the hill in a Trail 90 half way. I think they used mules or burros. I am familiar with carbide lamps from my childhood in mining country. I wonder if maintenance of a carbide generator was practical. Further research might answer the question. The real aviation old timers I knew would have the answer - but they have all gone West.
its now 2022 and there have been some nasty sun flares lately . if our gps and other fancy navigational systems get taken out , wed have to rely on these old system, a few years ago the state had decided to put in a 4 lane bypass of old 108 . on that route there was an old barn, the barn had arrows and x miles to sanfransico and to its other directions east. i have heard of that painted on buildings and such. the old barn had finaly gave in due to weather , neglect and time and is no more. columbia airport still has a revolving beacon that is lit at nite .on edit: in kingman arizona there is a 3000 thousand foot mountain called beacon hill. lots of communications towers and cell phone towers .. i wonder if that was a old beacon installation for airways.
Thanks for contributing. Heck, I've even had GPS readings greatly distorted when flying near electronic warfare ranges. Kingman was a major destination on the early aviation routes. A lot of aviation history there. When I was in kindergarten my father took me out to see the aircraft salvage operation at Kingman Army Airfield. I wish he would have bought some of those P-38's and B-16's. And just parked them in the desert. I would have inherited millions of dollars : -)
Yes. He was a poet who happened to be an aviator. And his disappearance in a P-38 Lightning is one of those yet-to-be solved mysteries. Some years ago there was news that parts of the wreck were found in the Mediterranean. But the circumstances are still a mystery. Shot down by a German? Done in by the notoriously complex fuel system of the P-38?
@@malcolmmarzo2461 Not really a poet but a writer. Vol de nuit, Night flight in the english edition, relate the experience of the first aviators who were flying mail by night. You have to read this to get the feel of those aviator.
Around 5:45 you describe radio range approaches. I found this demonstration video of them from several years ago to be very insightful on showing an example of how they worked. ua-cam.com/video/p-VqtNY8vpw/v-deo.html
That was an informative video. However, it overstated the ease of use. Old timers say it became nearly inoperative in stormy weather - when you needed it the most - due to the static caused by lightning. Even a dust storm can create a lot of electrical interference. Like today, one had to have a Plan B when the electronics fail : -)
The arrows were brightly painted and illuminated at night. They pointed to the next beacon. The pilots only had two methods of navigation. Pilotage: using ground features. And ded (or dead) reckoning: Using elapsed time and speed to figure out or deduce where you are. The old joke was, if you don't get your ded reckoning right you will end up dead. Later the intermediate landing fields installed early radio beacons as an additional aid to navigation.
As a kid I used to find Union Carbide cans scattered around abandoned mines. I even found a workable lamp. This was in the 1950's when there was still a lot of stuff left at historical sites. The issue of compressed acetylene vs. generated acetylene is an interesting issue that others have mentioned. Perhaps both were used, depending on circumstances. Some beacons used electric lighting supplied by gasoline engine generators.
A You Tube channel: Devon Dewey also has a shorter video on this fascinating subject! 😉😁 Has additional information on the coverage of this airway thru our nation ( from West coast to East coast.)
The is an completely original an intact arrow, tower, an generator shed. In the Newerk/health airport in Ohio. It was finally decommissioned in the 1980’s
5:34 Airstrip map & Oxcediloean beacon 80 miles wide? 80 x 80 x 0.67 = 4,288 ft of curvature on a globe of given size. Thanks for helping to prove that earth is flat.
On that Chinese airliner that nose dived into the ground we have learned the names of the 4 pilots on board. They are: • Capt. Sum Ting Wong • Capt. Wi To Lo • Capt. Ho Lee Fuk • Capt. Bang Ding Ow
There are 4 concrete beacon arrows in the St George, Utah area. The towers are long gone, but the arrows themselves are still in good condition.
Some day I want to take a trip and visit as many of these as possible.
The beacon at the Logan airport was from an airway
Excellent! In the early 1950's I read the book "Pilot Jack Knight" and vowed to become a pilot and many years later retired as one! It was very exciting to me when you mentioned him as he was such a valuable pioneer to what we have today. Thanks so much for sharing and the very best of luck!
Thanks. I'll look for the book. Jack Knight was one of those wonderful characters of aviation's Golden Age. Well, when you realize the flying conditions the pioneers had it was maybe not so golden. Even the advance of the DC-3 was less than golden at times. One old-timer said there was always the odor of vomit in the cabin : -) When I hear people today complain of their airline trip I laugh to myself.
They would not have used acetylene tanks. Until relatively recently, acetylene was produced as needed using a carbide/water reactor. To this day, Union Carbide is a major industrial chemical producer.
Just to the south of Medicine Bow, WY, there is one of these sites, The concrete arrow, tower, beacon, and generator hut are all still there.
I guess it has been preserved by people who know its importance. Local aviation history is neglected by most museums and historical groups.
Oh my! I live in fernley and been looking at that thing for 5 years wondering what it was! A friend stumbled upon it and sent it to me. So cool!
Thanks. You can live in an obscure place in the desert and still discover a lot of history.
Thank you for the video. Love these bird eye views of the rich history in our area. I've seen a couple arrows and towers out near the Humboldt Sink and have wanted to check out Fernley's. That is in great condition!
Thank you. It took years to find the Fernley Intermediate Airfield site. Some maps showed it on the wrong side of the freeway. Old timers just had vague ideas of where it was. I have circled around the area with an old pilot who thought he saw the airfield years ago, with no results.There is so little left of aviation history. Get photos of what you find. It will be gone.
You can find another of the concrete arrows this one pointing East at Troy California If you go to maps and search for Troy California follow Troy road up to the railroad and then track West to abandoned Tunnel 40 You will see a collection of radio towers above the old tunnel and the remnants of a concrete arrow pointing East it has deteriorated quite a bit in the last 20 years since I 1st located it
Thank you for adding to the knowledge of this topic.
The concrete arrows an towers were built by the commerce department in the 1920-30’s, for air mail navigation.
The arrows were 30 to 50 miles apart, an the arrow pointed twords where the next arrow was going east.
Durning WW2, most of the arrows were destroyed, so enemy’s couldn’t use them to navigate.
At the Intermediate Landing Field in this video I think the open field was changed to a hard dirt emergency landing strip during WWII.
I’m glad someone is documenting the historic aspect of the U.S. Thank you for your dedication. 👏👏
My father, growing up in the 1930's had a cheap pulp magazine that was falling apart by the time I handled it in the 1960's. The back cover was a ad for Camel cigarettes. "I fly the night mail. I smoke Camels."
Transcontinental flight became partly due to Elway? Jeppesen. One of those original "I fly the night mail" pilots. He started making maps and today his descendant company is a major player in aeronautical maps.
The Denver International Airport is named after him.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeppesen
Funny ad. But they needed a cigarette and a swig of whiskey to self-medicate. During WWII crews were smoking in aircraft that wreaked of fuel vapors. As a teenager in the 1960's I knew a man who was a flight engineer in a B-25. By the sixties smokers were becoming aware of the danger of smoking. He told me they knew cigarettes were bad in the 1940's too. He said, "Yeah, but since everybody was trying to shoot our lungs out we didn't worry about having a smoke."
I understand the four in line beacons that existed on the south shore on Lake Michigan, between Gary and Michigan City Indiana, were dismantled decades ago. They served to point the way to Chicago's Midway Airport at the time.
To bad they were just considered to be junk. Out in the desert one can find historical traces because nobody cares about these obscure places. But even desert areas are suffering rapid "development."
Just found your channel and want to thank you for the ride along into our not so distant history. I am happy to see that someone is getting these wonderful historic facts on video before they all are gone. Subscribed!
Excellent job finding the concrete pad for Beacon 22! We looked a few years ago and only found an old rusted bucket of the orange paint. We'll have to look again or has the new large building taken it away? I suspect that the beacon tower was moved to Tiger Field on the south end of Fernley. We have found most of the beacon sites and Intermediate Landing Fields - what remains - between 216 and Battle Mountain Intermediate Landing Field. The airmail pioneer pilots were a hardy breed. Thanks for the video.
Since this video was made the area of Fernley Intermediate Landing Field has been obliterated by a large industrial park development. Finding it was one of the hardest searches we had. When I found the orange paint buckets you speak of I knew we finally were close. Even out in the "wastelands" of Nevada it is sad how fast our history is being destroyed. There should be a monument placed on the site. Aviation history is greatly ignored in the West.
Great video. My Great Uncle was too young for WWI so to prove he was as brave as his older brother he became an airmail pilot for a few years. He said after the loss of several friends he decided to enter a more stable position.
A Guard at a maximum security prison!
Reminds me of a friend who became a deputy sheriff after years of being a 7th grade teacher. He said his second profession was less stressful : -)
There is still one of the old concrete arrows on top of a small hill here just south of Las Vegas right next to I-15. Its still completely intact.
Wonder Hussy did a video on it. Hope the "developers" don't destroy it with their next housing project : -)
Thank you for sharing this! It was extremely interesting to see your footage of this rare remaining light beacon for the early transcon airmail routes. I knew about the arrows and the beacons, however I never thought I would get to see current footage of one of the beacons. Best regards from Brasilia, Brazil.
Thank you. I imagine Brazil had these too. One of my friends was a World War Two air transport pilot who flew into Natal. His next stop was Dakar, North Africa. Brazil has a great aviation heritage. Still does. Few Americans realize that they could be flying on an Embraer regional airliner here : -)
Glad I found this video. Thanks.
In my childhood home there was still an acetylene light on the porch. Never saw it working, as there had been electricity from 1932. But what I have concluded is that the acetylene was made of carbide and water on site. There were two cylinders, one apparently for the carbide and the other one much smaller but heavy, apparently for pressurized water, i.e. water & pumped driving air. I also think the light source had contained one of those thorium oxide "socks" that until the LED era used to be giving light on the camping lanterns.
Given that the acetylene for welding purposes is dissolved in acetone (safety reasons), I wonder if that might also have been used in the mule carried acetylene tanks to the beacon. Or if the beacons could also have used water and dry carbide?
Good questions. Viewers bring up items for further research. I did not realize that acetylene lamps were used for residential lighting as well.
An amazing video of a part of history not told to school children and it's sad to see that all have gone but a few remaining sites like a lot of America.
In today's schools the teaching of history has become even more stripped of real life than it formerly was. And you are right about the hell-bent destruction of historical sites and historical memory. Even the Intermediate Landing Field site in the video has been totally obliterated by industrial development.
Very welcome.
this is much gud. i grew up Papid city, SD. brother joined CAP civil air patrol in the 60's. 1977 a Bolivian photographer hired me to work at Augustana lab for college. He studied to get pilot licence and had been airial recon in viet nam. here in Marfa,Tx is home of old air base all so. a big ranch family's daughter is small pilot here and the county air field brings in rich visitors here. a buddy has helped run/maintance past decade. this is educational on several levels. thans.
Thanks. One of my friends in Vietnam was a Texan. That's where I learned how different, how eccentric and what interesting characters Texans can be : -)
Nice work on a fascinating aspect of aviation history!
Thanks. When I made this video I was still struggling with aerial photography. That's why I got wavy video before learning about frame rates : -)
Great video thank you sir !
From about 5:20 - 5:30, In the line drawing you can see a tank I think it says 515 gallon tank up against the exterior wall of the hut. …This makes me think that the source of the acetylene gas was water dripping onto carbide granules, as this was a common way to use acetylene gas “in the field“. The simplest AND safest way to extinguish the light during the day would have been for that solar valve to simply close the water supply dripping onto the carbide granules…it might take a few seconds, but there would be no build up of flammable gas. At night, the solar valve could not only restore the flow of water to the carbide granules, but it might also have used some simple mechanical arrangement to move a perpetually lit pilot light (having been previously retracted) back into near proximity to the gas jet, where it would remain until it was time to cycle off again. Exactly how that solar valve worked, I have no clue. That would be an interesting thing to learn.
I could be entirely wrong… I did not read this anywhere it’s just what I deduced as being likely with the information given, combined with what little I know about carbide lights.
The head mounted lights that miners wore back in the early days burned acetylene that was produced by dripping water on a small canister of carbide crystals. (I don’t know if the technology even existed back then to compress acetylene into a pressurized tank, but even if it did, it’s not a place that I would want to work…). While transporting dry carbide crystals was extremely safe, and with the slow application of water, the gas could be produced at the location it was needed. These worked great where inert ores were being mined, but alternative lighting methods had to be developed for coal mines, as one can imagine what would happen if these open flame lights were introduced to an insufficiently ventilated chamber full of coal dust.
Interesting observations. I know that oxyacetylene welding was used during WWI in aircraft factories. This article says it was invented in 1903. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxy-fuel_welding_and_cutting
Thank you Sir!!
thank you great video
Thank you. Hope you learned some history with this. I sure did.
There is an arrow at Shelbyville municipal airport in Shelbyville Indiana also there is one southeast toward Cincinnati about 5 to 10 miles. You can see the arrow with google maps
This was the route from Cincinnati to Indianapolis
@@063317Art Indianapolis was one of the stopping point in the transcontinental air-train passengers route in 1930's.
There's still some of those arrows in Texas in Hudspeth and Williamson Counties and probably elsewhere, if you know where to look.
Thanks for contributing more information about the topic.
Thank you for this video.
Thank you to taking an interest in a part of history that has scant coverage.
Great video sir.
Great video! It's clear that a lot of thought and effort went into making it! So cool to see one of the old becons still standing after all this time.
Thank you. Every minute of footage can have several hours of research and editing in it.
Very fascinating video. I grew up in the VOR/ADF ERA, this look at history is a real treat, thank you.
The old timers said navigating with radio range systems was nerve wracking. But better than nothing. We think that we live in a time of rapid technological change. But the 1880's to the 1930's were really years of head-spinning change.
@@malcolmmarzo2461 Yes! My grandmother was born in 1901. She saw the start of: automobiles, airplanes, telephones, electric power in (almost) all homes, radio, television, rockets and satellites, nuclear power and bombs, computers in the home and others before she passed in 1985. I was born in 1954 and, while there have major improvements in most of those things, they are not brand new. When I've thought about it (which I have) the things I can name that are unprecedented in my lifetime are: medical imaging; genetics, genome, CRISPR; and the ability to find nearly any fact immediately with a device in my pocket. I would say the world changed much more dramatically in my grandmother's lifetime than it has in mine.
Thank you for this presentation. Subscribed.
Thanks and welcome
Thank you
Thanks. My wife and I are trash picker-uppers too. The things others see as trash often have clues to history.
Excellent! Thank You! I think the acetylene would have been generated on site at the beacon by pouring water on calcium carbide in an chamber. Perhaps the solar valve would start the water each night.
Good question. I'm going to do more research on this.
Great video. My father used radio range nav a little before they phased it out.
Interesting. Did he have an opinion on it?
@@malcolmmarzo2461 well A and N was a lot of work. There was a fair amount of skill, required and especially radio range approaches which had surprisingly low minimums in most places ( 300 and1)....The infamous "cone of silence" . They followed with the short lived VAR ( Visual Aural Range) transitioning to the Variable Omini Range nav which was much better liked. I do think Radio Range was better liked than DF and to some extent ADF(NDB) nav.
Awesome!
Thanks. I finally caved in and got a drone to use in later videos. It was not easy to become somewhat proficient with it : -)
Thank you for sharing a very informative video. I had no prior knowledge of this program as I have no connection to aviation; but it looks like an interesting topic to study. I have way too much time on my hands. 😉☮️ As an afterthought, this would have been a great subject for PBS History Detectives.
There is very little history on the early aviation system. Local museums have almost nothing in comparison to other transportation topics.
So i saw a video about the arrows and wondered why the square pads
They could have been footings for the tower.
Interesting to see some yellow paint on it. As Orange and white only become required in 1937. Before that colors used were black and yellow or black and white.
Interesting. Could be a clue to dating these sites.
Been cross I-80 countless times through that very place, and was unaware. Very interesting.
Thanks. The mail pilots were flying over current I-80 when it was a dirt road graded on top of the abandoned Central Pacific Railroad grade.
This is neat!
Thanks. There is a lot of unknown history in these unknown places.
Great theme and video. The good side of youtube.
Thank you. Whatever the criticisms of UA-cam may be it still has a vast range of content. Like the Internet, it contains the World, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Painstaking work.
Thank you. When this video was made I was still getting wobbly aerial video, until I finally figured out the best frame rate and resolution. Aerial photography has a lot of technical challenges : -)
Nice FJ40 👍
Grew up in the 60s and we would attend a flying social club in mcallen texas and one of its members was tex marshall, one of the original airmail pilots. His stories were fabulous, including the one where the government sent him a card saying pilot license, what do i need that for. He wrote an article about retracing thay route late in his life i found online a few years ago.
I'm sure you heard interesting stories - especially colorful when told by a Texan : -) I knew one pilot who flew airmail. I wish that I had a tape recorder or camera then to preserve an oral history then.
The acetylene beacon most likely didn't use pressure tanks rather can carbide and water to produce the gas.
Good question. I don't know. Acetylene tanks like we currently use for welding existed then. This beacon was in a difficult place to access. I only got up the hill in a Trail 90 half way. I think they used mules or burros. I am familiar with carbide lamps from my childhood in mining country. I wonder if maintenance of a carbide generator was practical. Further research might answer the question. The real aviation old timers I knew would have the answer - but they have all gone West.
This is what UA-cam is for I think, thanks 😊
Thank you. We often disparage UA-cam. Rightfully so at times. But it is still a wonderful library of human knowledge.
Our Parish Church in the Scottish Borders had an Aceteleyne Lighting system made by dripping water onto Calcium Carbide.
Interesting. I've heard of acetylene for auto, locomotive and beacon lighting. But was not aware of it being used for building interior lighting.
its now 2022 and there have been some nasty sun flares lately . if our gps and other fancy navigational systems get taken out , wed have to rely on these old system, a few years ago the state had decided to put in a 4 lane bypass of old 108 . on that route there was an old barn, the barn had arrows and x miles to sanfransico and to its other directions east. i have heard of that painted on buildings and such. the old barn had finaly gave in due to weather , neglect and time and is no more. columbia airport still has a revolving beacon that is lit at nite .on edit: in kingman arizona there is a 3000 thousand foot mountain called beacon hill. lots of communications towers and cell phone towers .. i wonder if that was a old beacon installation for airways.
Thanks for contributing. Heck, I've even had GPS readings greatly distorted when flying near electronic warfare ranges. Kingman was a major destination on the early aviation routes. A lot of aviation history there. When I was in kindergarten my father took me out to see the aircraft salvage operation at Kingman Army Airfield. I wish he would have bought some of those P-38's and B-16's. And just parked them in the desert. I would have inherited millions of dollars : -)
I grew up at Torrance airport my dad was a pilot he had a Pitts..Bonanza and a T 18 Thanks for picking up trash also
Wow, lucky you. I'm sure he was an interesting guy. Pilots have this tendency : -)
You would greatly enjoy reading Antoine de St-Exupery books!
Yes. He was a poet who happened to be an aviator. And his disappearance in a P-38 Lightning is one of those yet-to-be solved mysteries. Some years ago there was news that parts of the wreck were found in the Mediterranean. But the circumstances are still a mystery. Shot down by a German? Done in by the notoriously complex fuel system of the P-38?
@@malcolmmarzo2461 Not really a poet but a writer. Vol de nuit, Night flight in the english edition, relate the experience of the first aviators who were flying mail by night. You have to read this to get the feel of those aviator.
Around 5:45 you describe radio range approaches. I found this demonstration video of them from several years ago to be very insightful on showing an example of how they worked. ua-cam.com/video/p-VqtNY8vpw/v-deo.html
That was an informative video. However, it overstated the ease of use. Old timers say it became nearly inoperative in stormy weather - when you needed it the most - due to the static caused by lightning. Even a dust storm can create a lot of electrical interference. Like today, one had to have a Plan B when the electronics fail : -)
What was the concrete arrow for?
The arrows were brightly painted and illuminated at night. They pointed to the next beacon. The pilots only had two methods of navigation. Pilotage: using ground features. And ded (or dead) reckoning: Using elapsed time and speed to figure out or deduce where you are. The old joke was, if you don't get your ded reckoning right you will end up dead. Later the intermediate landing fields installed early radio beacons as an additional aid to navigation.
Not acetylene tanks - calcium carbide (solid) in a tin. Water added to that releases acetylene. You've probably heard of "Union Carbide".
As a kid I used to find Union Carbide cans scattered around abandoned mines. I even found a workable lamp. This was in the 1950's when there was still a lot of stuff left at historical sites. The issue of compressed acetylene vs. generated acetylene is an interesting issue that others have mentioned. Perhaps both were used, depending on circumstances. Some beacons used electric lighting supplied by gasoline engine generators.
A You Tube channel: Devon Dewey also has a shorter video on this fascinating subject! 😉😁 Has additional information on the coverage of this airway thru our nation ( from West coast to East coast.)
Thanks. I check it out.
Is there any interest in preserving them?
The is an completely original an intact arrow, tower, an generator shed.
In the Newerk/health airport in Ohio.
It was finally decommissioned in the 1980’s
Very little. The site of this Intermediate Landing Field was just obliterated by industrial buildings.
@@malcolmmarzo2461 Damn that's too bad. Cam they move them to a museum and refurbish one to operating mode for history's sake?
5:34 Airstrip map & Oxcediloean beacon 80 miles wide?
80 x 80 x 0.67 = 4,288 ft of curvature on a globe of given size.
Thanks for helping to prove that earth is flat.
Could be flat. Anything is believable nowadays : -)
On that Chinese airliner that nose dived into the ground we have learned the names of the 4 pilots on board. They are:
• Capt. Sum Ting Wong
• Capt. Wi To Lo
• Capt. Ho Lee Fuk
• Capt. Bang Ding Ow
I 'd reply. But nowadays we have to be "politically correct." Or get cancelled by the liberal thought police who get easily offended : -)
@@malcolmmarzo2461 you mean the thought police who are banning books and words like "gay".