Aeronautical Charts "FI" identification beacons
Apart from the CADF/DRDF.
The cupola over the RAF College main hall houses the last operational aerial lighthouse in the UK, a legacy from days when RNAS aircraft operated between the east coast and Cranwell (HMS Daedalus).
In the 1920s and 30s, ahead of radio navigation aids, a network of aerial lighthouses had been set up to guide aircraft at night. In the dome is a light, which, in the early days, could be seen as far as thirty miles away as the UK’s most inland lighthouse. The modern light is not so powerful and scans at 15 rpm.
copy and paste from this:
https://www.cranwellian-ian.com/ewEx...%20Copy%29.pdf
In the 1920s and 30s, ahead of radio navigation aids, a network of aerial lighthouses had been set up to guide aircraft at night. In the dome is a light, which, in the early days, could be seen as far as thirty miles away as the UK’s most inland lighthouse. The modern light is not so powerful and scans at 15 rpm.
copy and paste from this:
https://www.cranwellian-ian.com/ewEx...%20Copy%29.pdf
Avoid imitations
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I’m well aware of those, having done QGH letdowns (some quite good, some definitely not, as in “I don’t recognise this place, can you see an airfield?”), but I wouldn’t consider them Navaids in the usual, pilot interpreted sense, any more than a ground based radar is.
We could otherwise perhaps include the steam plumes from the power stations on the river Trent bubbling through the cloud layer below and asking for true bearings from other airfields in that area.
We could otherwise perhaps include the steam plumes from the power stations on the river Trent bubbling through the cloud layer below and asking for true bearings from other airfields in that area.
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Fun times!
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But it depended more on the skill of the controller, rather than the pilot, to make it a good one.