Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/432

 Night-Moths and Their Guiding Flames

Electric lights and gasoline flares to help the night-flyers land in safety

By Lieutenant Henry A. Bruno

Late of Imperial Royal Flying Corps, Canada

A NEST of the German machines that make frequent air raids on London when the weather is favor- able was discovered by a solitary airman of the British Royal Flying Corps, who had been on coast patrol and, as often happens, lost his way in the darkness. From his report I write this description.

The aerodrome is protected by three anti-aircraft batteries, consisting probably of three guns each. There are five hangars, as the pictures show. How many planes they house is not known, but a rough guess places the number at about thirty. There are two large repair sheds at one end of the field, one of which con- tains a power house where electric current is generated.

In order that squad- rons which fly at night might find their home again, the Germans left nothing to chance. They filled ten buckets with rope and rags, soaked in gasoline, and arranged them as follows: Seven in a line over a distance of seven hundred yards to form the long leg of the letter "L," and three more over a distance of four hundred yards for the short leg. Near the first bucket, at the beginning of the "L," they erected a pole twenty feet high, with a red electric light on top. When these gasoline flares, as they are called, are lighted, they can be seen from a great height on a clear night. The aeroplanes land toward the short leg of the "L," and run inside and down the long arm.

This system is also used by the Allies; but