Regarding long wires, recently reread Ernest K Gann's wonderful 'Fate is the Hunter'. In one chapter he describes a flight from Bluie West One to Iceland. They fail to pick up the beacon and let-down into solid clag, slowly descending to 300ft then 200ft vainly looking for a glimpse of the sea. At this point he requests his radio-op to pay out the long antenna with its weighted 'fish' on the end. The radio-op complains that he might lose his precious 'fish' and also points out that the antenna will only hang a mere 50ft below the aircraft. Down they go, 100ft, 80ft, still in solid cloud then at 50ft a cry from the radio-op - he had lost his fish. At 40ft the cloud finally thins enough for them to glimpse the water and they continue at this altitude for twenty minutes until they finally see the coast.
OK, back to the main story...