Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-24

be located there, so 80 acres Of timber
were cleared and 40 acres Of stumps
dragged out.
A radio operator caretaker Is stationed
at Blue Canyon field TO receive the
latest weather reports from Reno and
Sacramento. so that he can signal
planes as to whether they should pro-
! coed or land and wait for better wealth.
! er. He can also tell whether mail ships
( can get over the Hump" safely.
! In the more isolated regions, heacons
are often placed at points miles from
human habitation. Hiring Of care
! takers would be very costly, so sun re-
lays are used to turn on the lights au-
i tomatically at dusk and OF at dawn.
In all beacons lamp-changers are used
/ so that II one bulb burns out another
will be instantly switched into opera
| ton. For q dark beacon on q bad
night might spell disaster to q mail
pilot flying low from light to light. And
the Department Of Commerce now has
a vital part to play in helping "the mail
get through"
Securing Of caretakers to live at in
termediate fields far from civilization
might seem to offer difficulty. but. ac-
cording to Capt. Fred @. Hingsburg,
chief engineer of the airways division,
|
We might Scour all Of New York
City for such a man." said Capt. Kings
burg. but out there In the mountain
country there are plenty Of men who
love to be alone. About the loneliest
station Is In Pleasant Valley, IS miles
from the nearest town. Our inter-
mediate field is In the middle Of the
cutoff a straight shot across the val
ley. In bad weather the mail pilots
have to use what they call the great
circle course following railroad tracks,
sometimes even getting down low
enough to see the reflection Of their
that way for miles.
"Our operator at the Pleasant Valley
field informs pilots on both East and
West runs whether it's safe to use the
cutoff We've built a comfortable
house there for the caretaker and the
mail pilots are glad to ny low and drop
things, so he isn't so isolated after all.
One caretaker on the airways gets his
daily paper that way, even sooner than
his city neighbor to the west"
EXTENSION superintendents have had
~ interesting experiences In the
West, while picking field and beacon
sites. w. T. Miller, who Is assistant TO
Capt Hingsburg, relates few Of these
We've used all kinds Of transrorta-
ton out there-airplanes. trains, mules,
horses, trucks and our feet One chap
In our outfit went out on bad stretch
with q truck and q tractor. He took
the tractor along to pull the truck out.
Another time. hunting beacon site.
we found ourselves on q road so near
the edge Of q cliff that we could look
down 5000 feet We drove with the
doors open-ready to Jump.
We met some odd characters during
the ground surveys. We found people,
sometimes living In lonely shacks. some
times in villages or five or six houses,
who had never been out Of that region
They'd never seen train. and nat
urally expected that aviation would be
totally unknown to them. But I got a
surprise. They knew what flying was
and we never found q solitary person
who didn't know all about Lindbergh
even an old hermit In the most forsaken
place you could come across"
Hedge hopping In that rugged part
Of the West Is one Of the most danger
Gus and yet most fascinating phases Of
airway work. The grandeur of the
Rockies and the wild beauty Of that
uninhabited region go far to make up
!, |
ly Is, for there are many spots where
an airplane simply could not be "set
down" So precipitous are some Of the
mountain sides between which the air
ways twist that plane could not even
crack up" in safety. It would roll for
hundreds of feet, ending up in some
dark canyon. Densely wooded slopes
add to the peril Of flying low in the
Rockies.
Here, and In the Alleghenies. the air.
ways men have had to do their best In
providing good fields and lessening the
huge handicap under which the air
mail pilots labor In fog and storm.
But even when the Always are built,
the last beacon light and the last field
cleared for use. the romance Of the air
lanes does not at once shift to the
planes speeding back and forth over
these aerial highways. For there Is con-
stantly some new and fascinating prob
lem confronting the airway engineers,
something which must be done to in
crease safety In air navigation. And
the vast increase In air commerce makes
solution Of these problems imperative.
Fog and bad weather flying are our
worst troubles" says Capt. Hingsburg,
who Is in charge of all Always work.
But when trafhc becomes congested,
we shall have another serious problem