Evening star., 1937-01-17
BY G.. B. ALLEN.

N ELIEF that airline pilots
X themselves should decide what
new or improved aides to flight
should be installed along the
routes they fly was expressed last
week by q veteran air man, who regu-
larly flies q transport plane in and
out Of Newark Airport, in discussing
the forthcoming safety conference in
Washington between the airline oper-
ators and the Bureau Of Air Com
merce. He stoutly defended the radio
beacons with which the airways now
are equipped as being almost in
fallible" for the pilot who thoroughly
understands how to navigate by them,
and said that nothing like" the
$l0,000,000 appropriation recommend
ed by J. Monroe johnson. Assistant
Secretary of Commerce, to modern
ize" airway safety facilities would
be necessary.
This pilot, who requested anony-
nifty. stressed the importance of the
working pilots" in the air trans
port industry being permitted to say
what ground aides they want for bad
weather operation, rather than leav-
ing the decision to airline executives
and Government officials. He said
that, in the last analysis. airline pilots
were responsible for getting their pas
sengers through safely, and that even
company officials who had been COM
petent pilots were not so well quail
fed as these men to meet and judge
the ever-changing problems of sched-
uled air transport flying.
More Beacons Needed.
The present radio range beacons
are all right" he said, but We do
need some more Of them. In the
local area, for instance, there ought
to be a beacon at Teterboro, N. j.,
so that American Airlines could use
it as an orientation point for its
planes coming in from the north and
west instead of sending them over
to the Martins Greek beam to mill
around with United Air Lines and
Transcontinental & Western Air ships
waiting their turn to come on in to
Newark Airport. This would do q
lot to ease up traffic congestion sit
uation at Martins Creek that is get
ting to be more and more serious.
I'VE also ought to have a fan
marker beacon on the west leg Of the
Newark beacon at Summit so that
incoming planes would know when
they we're safely over the ridge of the
hills there and headed down the
sloping countryside toward Newark
Airport. Such a marker also would
tell the pilot just how much farther
he had to fly before encountering the
dead spot above the Newark beacon" Z"
This pilot scoffed at last weeks IN
sistence by radio commentator that
the recent series of airline accidents
demonstrated the need for less de-
pendence upon the radio beacon IN
air transport operations ana more
dead reckoning by passenger plane
pilots.
He said that, in his opinion, last
weeks crack-up of Western Air
express plane near Los Angeles, last
months crash Of a United Air Lines
plane in the same vicinity and the
earlier, but non-fatal wrecking of an
Eastern Air Lines Douglas, flown by
Henry T. Merrill. near Port Jervls,
N. Y, were all due to errors in the
dead-reckoning type of navigation. He
added that there was no doubt what
ever of this in Merrills case, since the
veteran E. A. L. pilot admitted that,
when he cracked up so miles on
course, he was Letting down" through
the clouds on what he estimated as
a normal approach to Newark Airport
with the full anticipation of coming
out in the clear somewhere near New
Brunswick, N. J.
The fact that the Bureau of Air
Commerce permits three major air
lines-United, American and T. w.
A.--to use the same route for their
highly competitive New York Chicago
services Is viewed by this pilot as an
unnecessary safety hazard in thick
weather flying. United happens to
have the original and shortest airway
established between these two cities,
50 that American and T. w. A., on
their nonstop New York Chicago
schedules. make a practice of follow
ing 1t instead of their own more
roundabout airways which go. re-
spectively, by Buffalo-Detroit and
Pittsburgh Columbus.