[Premium-Rx] NDB Lesson from a pilot

[wglevy]

Gents,

Back in WW 1, we had to find ships to drop supplies. The NDB was a direction
finding gadget. A WW1 ship broadcast a signal onboard and a plane flying
back and forth through blue sky or bad weather could find the ship and drop
supplies.

Pilots older than me remember a system of dots and dashes they flew towards
and were on course when the dots and dashes became steady. I don't remember
what that system was called. I wasn't old enough or born yet. It was also
below the AM broadcast band.

Both systems were the early precursor to the NDB that later morphed from
dots /dashes to needles on the panel we try to keep dead UP.

After 2 jets collied in the SW in the late 50's or early  60's the feds
decided to build roads in the air and have radar control. They invented
VOR's that broadcast radials in 360 degrees. This is VHF. Then came distance
measuring equiptment that automatically figured out where on a radial you
were. This replaced time, airspeed and windspeed calculations on a yellow
pad with stopwatch.

The government still operates NDB, VOR along with the state of the art GPS.
How long it will continue with NDB and VOR is anybody's guess.

My little single engine can do all 3. The GPS is what everyone now rely's
on.

73, Bill N2WL and N252BM




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry K" <w5kp at direcway.com>
To: "Ben Dover" <quixote2 at ix.netcom.com>; "Jeff Anderson"
<jcanderson at ieee.org>; <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 4:45 AM
Subject: RE: [Premium-Rx] Beacon Hunting


> I might be off base here because I'm not an aviator, but telling pilots
that
> NDB's can help you find airports in bad weather and then slipping in a few
> here and there on top of tall towers seems like a classic gummint bad
idea..
> :-)
> Jerry W5KP
> ============================================================
> "Occasionally, NDBs are used to mark obstructions; I remember being rather
> surprised to find that an NDB used to be (maybe still is) attached to a
> very tall TV tower in the Dallas area, simply to mark it's location and
warn
> aircraft
> off of a potential collision hazard. Information on the NDB in this case
is
> clearly marked on the sectional navigation charts that pilots use."
>
>
>
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