Too Many Beacons

Note: The following article originally appeared in the May, 1931 edition of Aviation. I've added a few examples of the commercial beacons being discussed.

Lighting the national air routes of the United States has been a monumental task, thus far ably performed by the Department of Commerce. Many private beacons have been erected along air routes or near airports. These have been certified by the Department of Commerce wherever they represented a real contribution to air route lighting.

Effective beginning this year [1931], the Department announced new and more strictly defined conditions under which non-governmental beacons will be certified and permitted to operate. All airport beacons shall be green, or equipped with auxiliary multi-source green beacons flashing a Morse Code identification of the port. All air route beacons shall be provided with green auxiliary lights if landing facilities are available and with red auxiliary lights if there are no landing facilities. All landmark beacons not located directly on an air route or an airport, and this class includes all downtown beacons, must be red in color unless specifically excepted by the Secretary of Commerce, and must be equipped with a fixed projector pointing to the nearest landing field, or airport.

The Grant Building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania opened in 1929, and was home to KDKA Radio, the nation's first radio station. The building was, for a short time, the tallest of the city's modern skyscrapers. Atop the building was a lighted beacon that blinked P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G-H in Morse code.

Even if that plan had been promptly carried out to the full, the problems of a pilot traveling a new route at night would still have been quite complicated enough. Gone forever are the days when every airway beacon marked a point on the straight course from New York to San Francisco. Come up from Tulsa towards Wichita now, or fly over Chicago, and airway lights blink in every quarter of the compass.

Unfortunately for the welfare of the night pilot there are many "bootleg" beacons in operation. These are usually erected by private firms for advertising purposes. They were hailed with enthusiasm, in the excitement of the trans-Atlantic era three years ago, as providing the existence of an exceptionally high degree of local "air mindedness." Now they are recognized as constituting a real hazard to night flying, which should no more be tolerated than would would be the erection of a false beacon near the entrance of a busy harbor. The Department of Commerce has inaugurated a campaign to eliminate all non-certified aeronautical lights. All members or friends of the aviation industry can be of the greatest service in helping to locate and bring about their discontinuance.

For further information on private-venture airways and airway beacons, read a discussion of the Richfield Oil Company beacon system along the west coast -- HERE.