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Thread: Air Mail route markers from the 1920s??

  1. #1
    dewi8095's Avatar
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    Air Mail route markers from the 1920s??

    See the link below? I just read about these for the first time. Are any of them still out there?? Has anyone ever seen them from the air?

    http://www.snopes.com/travel/airline/arrows.asp

    Don

  2. #2
    Jonathan Harger
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    Check out this blog post from Chapter 936 in Utah: http://eaachapter936.blogspot.com/20...te-arrows.html
    There are some aerial photos, and also a more complete history than the blurb in the Snopes article.
    I love aviation artifacts like this; thank you for posting.

  3. #3
    cluttonfred's Avatar
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    Wonderful stuff. Now here's a project...I wonder if it would be possible to find a comprehensive list of each and every one of these sites with the latitude and longitude? It would be great fun to put that up on a web site and have pilots send in photos of each one as it looks today, kind of like GPS cache hunting from the air. The link above gives the coordinates for three of them...here's a link to one on Google Maps. I bet there are many that have been caught up by development but might still be visible in outline from the air under the lawn or something like that. There must have been little houses for the folks that maintained the generators and lights...I bet some are now private homes, like old lighthouses.
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  4. #4
    EAA Staff Tom Charpentier's Avatar
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    Here's a similar thing that is really strange: giant concrete crosses in the desert, used to calibrate Corona spy satellites in the '60s: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/9466250
    Tom Charpentier
    Government Relations Director
    EAA Lifetime #1082006 | Vintage #722921

  5. #5

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    Isn't there a airway marker beacon in the EAA museum?

  6. #6
    EAA Staff Tom Charpentier's Avatar
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    There are a few scattered around the grounds - two are in Camp Scholler (one near the road, one near the Pobereznys' old home), and I'm not sure where the one at Pioneer came from. We also have two examples indoors and the "Lindbergh Beacon" that once sat atop the Palmolive Building in Chicago.
    Tom Charpentier
    Government Relations Director
    EAA Lifetime #1082006 | Vintage #722921

  7. #7
    cub builder's Avatar
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    You'll find one of these old air route beacons along with an original generator, other support equipment and other aviation memorabilia of that time restored and converted into a museum at the Grants-Milan airport in New Mexico.

    -CubBuilder

  8. #8
    Here is a picture (apologies for the poor quality) of a model of one of the arrows and beacons that I took at the IPMS (International Plastic Modelers Socity) Nationals contest in Loveland, CO last month. It gives you a pretty good idea of the layout:

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  9. #9
    Jonathan Harger
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    While we're on the subject of geoglyphs, I'd love to take an AirCam trip and see the Nazca Lines... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zack Baughman View Post
    Here is a picture (apologies for the poor quality) of a model of one of the arrows and beacons that I took at the IPMS (International Plastic Modelers Socity) Nationals contest in Loveland, CO last month. It gives you a pretty good idea of the layout:

    Name:  Pic_ 1449.jpg
Views: 1750
Size:  89.8 KB
    Wouldn't it be cool to build a replica over at pioneer airport with one of the towers? Since were not part of a airway system, We could number it 711 and point it due west for all the departed aviators to find their way west. it wouldn't cost much to do. http://www.ruralswalabama.org/attrac...-evergreen-al/
    Last edited by RV8505; 09-05-2013 at 11:45 AM.

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