Old Airways Charts
 

I've often wondered if anyone is keeping track
(sorry, no pun intended) of the changes to the airway structure in a historical sense. Remeber when Alpha's were Amber and Bravo's were Blue and went from NDB to NDB.

Is there an ATC museum somewhere with all the old charts etc.?

In the course of the tidying up of my attioc at the insistence of head office, I uncovered my old Aerad charts dating from 1982.

If you are interested let me know.

Skytrucker (and I am not either Ozdude nor even the Guvnor)

Then you are a very lucky Skytrucker.

Question on ATC museum is good one. Don't know of any ATC museum per se, just some odd stuff stashed in corners here and there. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has some stuff and information in U S. Believe Naval Aviation Museum has some stuff in Pensacola.

[ 08 January 2002: Message edited by: RATBOY ]</p>

Thanks Skytrucker, but like you I have a selection of old charts up the loft that just seem to have accumulated over the years.

I trust old Capt Jeppesen's note books etc have be preserved for posterity in the US, but over Europe I wonder.

It also all those old nav aids like consol/SBA etc, I guess someone somewhere is keeping track of aviation history.

[ 10 January 2002: Message edited by: no sig ]</p>

The Airways Museum at Essendon Airport in Melbourne, Australia, does indeed have a collection of old airways charts and much, much more. Obviously the focus is on the Australian airways system.

There is also an extensive website at www.airwaysmuseum.com which has a partial 'virtual tour' of the Museum's collection, as well as heaps of old photos, etc.

Amber, Red, Blue, Green numbered 1 to 3, 10 miles wide, 3000ft to 15000 ft.
The colours were they based on a quadrant idea? Presume the numbering was chronological. All roads led to LHR or atleast Epsom and Watford and onto the Kilburn intersection.
Occasionaly there was a Purple one but being pre Beecham rail was the prefered option.
"Going from NDB to NDB", routes coasted out over light houses because they had ndbs.
Then late '57? the upper limited increased to 30,000', started to call these upper levels FLs. There getting to be quite a lot of Viscounts about. April '58 introduced oneway systems and new airways with double digit numbers (blue23) for cross channel routes.
Hope the old brain cells have been reasonably accurate.

1950 – Green One, Europe’s first airway opens, running from Woodley near Reading to Strumble Head on the Welsh coast.

1951– Five new airways created: Amber One – Daventry-Dunsfold-Dieppe-Paris; Amber Two – Daventry-Brookmans Park-Maidstone-Paris; Blue One – Woburn-Watford-Crowborough; Red One – Dunsfold-Maidstone-North Foreland-Amsterdam; and Red Two – Woodley-Epsom-Ashford.

(From the NATS website)

There was a thread here a while back that mentioned a chap who collects Intersection names and keeps a record of their changes. It might have been on the ATCO forum, so perhaps you could post there also.

Right, back to JetBlast. :}

Somewhere in my loft is a superceded chart of Ghana Airspace which I saved from AIS Heathrow c 1971.
Overprinted in heavy print was the sentence "The whole of Ghana Airspace should be regarded as a Danger Area"...!
(What does the current chart show?)
...just one of many items which I felt had more worth than being confined to the paperbin.

With regard to UK Airspace,I suggested to someone in CAA/NATS some 20 years ago that a record of changes to the airways structure should be kept for posterity.No doubt, somewhere in "HQ", wherever that is now, there are files showing the changes.

To my knowledge there was never a requirement at unit level to keep out-of-date docs...they were simply "binned".

I have no doubt that the information is available, given sufficient research, to provide a comprehensive history of Advisory/Airways/UARs/SIDS/STARs.

There is apparently no dedicated museum/library facility in the UK where such info can be readily accessed.

Any ideas where such a facility could be setup?

Send me a PM....

Phil.

I have saved a smattering of US charts back to the early 1950s.

A few years ago I took a spare Washington Sectional chart from the early 50s to a pilot-friend I was visiting. It was very well received since it was from the year of my host's birth. I felt old :(

The 50s were a period of transition in US navaids. The chart has NDBs, old four-course LF aids, four-course VHF VARs (visual-aural range), and some VORs. The VAR was a system with two courses being identified by aural A-N and the other two by Blue/Yellow on a meter. VOR rapidly overtook it.

A US PBS TV show of many years ago about the history of the DC-3 has a segment on the four-course radio beacons - clearly a PR film from the mid/late 1930s. BTW, that show is a must-see if you get a chance.

I also have an early 1930s index map of the US Sectional charts, but only a few sectionals had yet been issued. Before that, strip charts were issued for the few established US airways. These airways were lit at night by fixed light beams on short towers every 20 miles or so. I saw one such tower, abandoned, at Melbourne, Florida, as recently as the early 1970s.

SC (very old)