Concrete Arrows

[Subdeacon Joe]

http://wayalife.com/showthread.php?13576-Concrete-Arrow-Quest-Search-for-Transcontinental-Airway-Beacons

[Sedalia Dave]

Thanks for sharing. Wonder why these sites are not protected or listed on a historical register.

[Michigan Slim]

Lighthouses for airplanes! Pretty cool!

[Charlie Whiskers]

There was a spot on ...I think....the History channel about these a year or so ago. Clever idea for the time period.

[Rusty Chains]

Guess they were really putting the V in VFR! Never really thought about it, but this sort of thing makes sense, especially for the low altitude fair weather flying they had to do in those days. Just a bit surprised that the arrows weren't bigger, though the bright paint would help with that.

 

edit for finger check

[Subdeacon Joe]

A bit more on the system: http://wchsutah.org/aviation/navigation-arrows.php

The Postal Service solved the problem with the world's first ground-based civilian navigation system: a series of lighted beacons that would extend from New York to San Francisco. Every ten miles, pilots would pass a 70-foot concrete arrow on the ground which was painted a bright yellow. At the center of each arrow there would be a 51-foot steel tower and topped by a million-candlepower rotating beacon. Below the rotating light were two course lights pointing forward and backward along the arrow. The course lights flashed a code to identify the beacon's number. If needed, a generator shed at the tail (or feather end) of each arrow powered the beacon and lights.

By 1924, just a year after Congress funded it, the line of giant concrete markers stretched from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Cleveland, Ohio. The next summer, it reached all the way to New York and then extended all the way to San Francisco by 1929.

Around 1926, the new Aeronautics Branch in the Department of Commerce (or U.S. Postal Service?) proposed a 650-mile air mail route linking Los Angeles to Salt Lake City and passing through Washington County. It was designated as Contract Air Mail Route 4 (CAM-4). Western Air Express, Inc. was awarded a contract to lay out the route and carry the mail. Their first flight was made on April 17, 1926 in a Douglas M-2 airplane. By 1928, the route had been marked with the cement arrows and beacon towers for navigation at night and in inclement weather.

 

 

Some good photos at that site.

I think that with the tower in place and painted bright yellow they would stand out well.

 

[Tex Jones, SASS 2263]

I think that in those days they didn't fly very high and, especially at night, the lights would have been easy to see. I wonder who kept the lights on? Generators? How did they get to them?

[Subdeacon Joe]

I think that in those days they didn't fly very high and, especially at night, the lights would have been easy to see. I wonder who kept the lights on? Generators? How did they get to them?

 

 

 

I think that many were built near existing roads. Otherwise. bump in a trail and build it. Seems like a generator shed was part of the plan for many of them.

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

I saw Arrows painted on rooftops. But learned something new. Thanks for posting. MT

[Shawnee McGrutt]

Was one where I grew up in Ohio. Now I know what it was for. Who says you can't learn stuff on the Internet.

[Subdeacon Joe]

I took two of the images into Paint and colored in the arrow. They really stand out.

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

Not all of them were straight, I guess. A few of the shots showed arrows with little deviations that I thought were just from ground movement. But here is one in Nevada that shows a 90^o right turn.

 

 

And sometime one marker showed where two routes came together going to a common destination:

Caption reads: "Here is a concrete arrow with a double tail I found using Google Earth. The arrow points to Salt Lake City, Utah."

And here, at the Shelbyville, IN airport, we see one with the tower:

[Subdeacon Joe]

I found more about that two tailed arrow here

 

 

 

 

[Calamity Kris]

Cool. Thanks SDJ.