Wire Communication Aids to Air Transportation * 



By H. H. NANCE 



RAPID development of air transportation in this country has 

 continued through the past few years and today estabUshed 

 routes connect nearly all important cities. The route mileage of the 

 airways in the United States as shown in Fig. 1 totals over 30,000 miles. 

 Regularly scheduled transport service is given on practically all of these 

 routes and considerable use of them is also made by military and 

 private planes. Statistics relating to service of air transport com- 

 panies seem particularly significant. The United States Department 

 of Commerce reported approximately 42,800,000 miles flown in pas- 

 senger, mail and express service on domestic scheduled lines in 1931, 

 an increase of 35 per cent over the preceding year and more than a 

 fourfold increase since 1928. In the same three-year period passen- 

 gers carried increased ninefold, reaching a total of around 470,000 in 

 1931. Along with this growth safety has been increased as indicated 

 by the respective 1928 and 1931 reports of 250,000 and 750,000 miles 

 flown per accident. Reasonable regularity of schedules on air trans- 

 port lines also has been maintained, the ratio of miles actually flown 

 to scheduled miles last year being in the order of 92 per cent. 



Communication facilities have been an important contributing 

 factor to all this development and improvement. It was recognized 

 early that fast and reliable communication would be needed in con- 

 nection with any extensive development of air transportation. Com- 

 munication with planes in flight was an obvious requirement and this 

 could be provided only by radio. For land service, however, ex- 

 perience has indicated that wire facilities best meet the general require- 

 ments. This paper describes the wire communication facilities in gen- 

 eral use today, both by the Government and by transport companies, 

 as aids to air transportation. 



Principal airways have been established largely through Federal aid. 

 In addition to marking and lighting airways the Airways Division of 

 the Department of Commerce had provided up to April 1, 1932, 67 

 radio telephone stations at approximately 200-mile intervals as indi- 

 cated in Fig. 1, to be used for broadcasting weather reports and similar 



* Presented at Summer Convention of A. I. E. E., Cleveland, Ohio, June 20-24, 

 1932, Published in abridged form in Elec. Engg., July, 1932. 



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