416 



Canadian Forcslry Journal, October, 1919 



RADIO-PLANES WATCH FORESTS AND RANCHES 



Airplanes Plus the Radio Detect Fires and Supervise Farming f 



Airplanes, plus radio-telephone equipment, 

 have found a brand-new peace-time utility — 

 watching for forest fires in the vast government 

 timber preserves, and also for supervising the 

 operation of large ranches, such as those em- 

 bracing thousands of acres and found frequent- 

 ly in the great western farming regions. Some 

 of these farms and ranches are so large that it 

 takes a superintendent all day to make an in- 

 spection trip across the ranch, even with a high- 

 powered automobile. 



The airplane as part of a farm equipment is 

 now a reality. It makes its appearance at 

 Hartin, Mont., on the wheat ranch owned and 

 .controlled by John Pierpont Morgan and other 

 New York capitalists. Erhardt Schmitt, former 

 American army aviator, has been employed to 

 operate the machine. His duties are to carry 

 the ranch manager from one part of the 250- 

 mile, 100,000-acre wheat ranch to other fields. 

 A wireless telephone in the airplane enables 

 the manager to keep in constant communication 

 with the ranch headquarters. 



Not only can the manager or superintendent 

 immediately report back to the ranch headquar- 

 ters, by radio-telephone, but he can give local 

 orders to gang or section foremen by means of 

 small radio receiving stations erected about the 

 ranch. The installation and maintenance cost 

 of these stations is relatively small in any case. 

 They have also been so greatly simplified dur- 

 ing the war that practically anyone can be in- 

 structed in handling the talking and receiving 

 apparatus in a short time. Some of these sets 

 work as simply as the ordinary telephone. 



Airplanes and Radio Serve to Protect 

 Nation's Forests. 



Recently the use of airplanes to patrol the 

 forests and watch for incipient forest fires was 

 extended by the government and now the wire- 

 less telephone has been installed for an ex- 

 perimental trial. If found to be practicable the 

 wireless will be extended to cover the great 

 woods with an invisible net of communication. 



The wireless is expected to be an improve- 

 ment upon wires or cables for one very im- 



portant reason. In the past great difficulty 

 has been experienced in maintaining wire com- 

 munication in the forests because of the inter- 

 ruption to the service caused by falling timber, 

 especially in the stormy season. Snowslides 

 have been another source of destruction to the 

 wires. The use of wireless, of course, obviates 

 all such difficulties. 



For the purpose of the present experiment 

 the Signal Corps of the army has lent to the 

 Forest Service four combination sets of trans- 

 mitting and receiving apparatus. One set of 

 the equipment is to be installed on Mount Hood 

 at an elevation of about 13,000 feet, and an- 

 other at the nearest forest ranger station, about 

 twelve miles away. Two other sets are to be 

 placed in the Clearwater Forest region of Idaho, 

 which is a very heavy wilderness country. 



All of the wireless stations will be established 

 at look-out points, where watch is kept for for- 

 est fires, and will supplement the regular ser- 

 vice, which not so long ago was augmented by 

 the addition of airplanes for patrol. Now two 

 additional airplane routes for that purpose have 

 been mapped out, both operated from Mather 

 Field, near Sacramento, Cal. The other two 

 routes of the airplane service are operated from 

 March Field, near Riverside, Cal. 



The first route from Mather Field will cover 

 the northern parts of the Eldorado and Tahoe 

 forests on the valley side of the Sierras. The 

 planes will start from Mather Field each morn- 

 ing and proceed to Oroville by way of Placer- 

 ville, Colfax, Nevada City, and Strawberry 

 Valley. A landing will be made at Oroville, 

 where a stuitable field has been provided. The 

 return trip will be made in the afternoon. 



The second route from Mather Field will 

 cover the southern parts of the Eldorado and 

 Stanislaus forests. Starting from Mather Field, 

 the route runs to Placerville, Grizzly Flat, Big 

 Trees, and to a landing near Sonora and Tuo- 

 lumme. In this case also the return trip will 

 be made in the afternoon. Each of the Mather 

 Field routes has a round-trip length of about 

 150 miles. 



