Evening star., 1948-04-11
By W. H. Shippen, Jr.
Aviation Editor Of The Sfur

| put it. That business of swinging
left Is something to gray a raviga-
tors hair. Beams sent out from
the radar may be bouncing of the
ice-banked coast, or rebounding
from pressure ridges with false
echoes"
Too, the north magnetic pole,
roughly some 300 miles to the east,
can set the best magnetic compass
into q tailspin. Apparently this
ancient standby is not point on
the map so much as an egg shaped
area in the Canadian Archipelago
which seems to be moving north
west at an undetermined rate.
1t would seem to the Iayman that
the reliable North Star might be a
signpost to fall back on. especially
when the magnetic pole and north
ern lights have been left to the
south. The trouble Is. the north
star appears directly overhead.
While bright stars like Vega and
Sirius ordinarily are available for a
three-cornered Ak, there are times
when the sun leaves enough light
In the sky to blot out other heavenly
bodies while remaining over the
horizon beyond sight of the harassed
man with his head In the astral
dome.
On such occasions, the navigator
would be wasting his time peering
out of his plexiglas dome unless he
was interested to learn if he could
determine. by eyesight alone,
whether the B-29 was flying upside
down or doing loop.
Must Trust Gadgets
The boys have no choice but to
put their faith in gadgets. One of
these is a gyro directional pointer.
The polar 29s carry three, each op-
Grating on a different principal.
They are checked as long as any
check points remain, and then
checked against each other. But
they also creep at rates never en-
tirely constant.
1t would seem time for the radio
operators to come through with
solid information. Usually they
can, even that far north, but on
other occasions tone like one from
an s-inch bell comes through their
receivers, or again the incoming
communication is repeated as If two
stations with the same message on
the same frequency were sending an
instant or so apart.
Sometimes the northern lights
jam communications, and again they
seem to expedite them. During one
Of the most brilliant displays he
ever saw the Polar Queens chief
operator got Puerto Rico on the
telephone one night. He hardly
knew what to say.
Now and then the 29s talk two
way to Andrews Field, Maryland.
On one occasion Andrews relayed
the message to the Ladd home base
In a couple Of minutes, and the 20
aloft was able to get immediate
confirmation that its message had
been received although unable to
send to Ladd direct. That made
us feel pretty good" the operator
said.
Flight Takes 16 or II Hours
The principal mission of the flights
is to gather weather information at
half hour intervals for relay by
international code to Alaska, Can
ada, the United States, Greenland
and to our air personnel in Japan.
Due to the southeastward drift of
storms that make up in the Arctic,
the information is Of immediate use
to Alaska and Northern Canada.
Drifts Of polar air are known to
affect the weather in the United
States a week Or so after their
origin can be charted In the Far
North. The information as yet,
however. is Of more value to re-
searchers than to local forecasters.
The 3,76o-mile round trip to the
pole, which usually requires from
l6 to II hours, is flown mostly on
the eastern dog leg going north.