Night Flights and Bright Lights

Flying above the railroad tracks which connected the dots between cities, Lindbergh chose Transcontinental Air Transport’s (TAT’s) destinations in eight states. CEO Clement Keys and his fellow board members held such confidence in the Lone Eagle’s chosen route that they poured funding into building “new ports” where there were none, and influenced municipalities to create or enlarge their own airports. It was a massive, expensive and well-planned first attempt to combine passenger airplanes and trains, with the promise of coast-to-coast travel in two days. TAT leveled open fields and hired architects to build new airports in Oklahoma (Waynoka); New Mexico (Clovis and Albuquerque); and Arizona (Winslow and Kingman). The early plans included Barstow and San Francisco, but the existing Glendale airport, known as Grand Central, in southern California was chosen for the maiden eastbound flight piloted by Lindbergh in July 1929. Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; St. Louis; and Wichita, Kansas, each had a publically-funded landing field and/or airport which met the TAT standards for quality of runways, reporting weather, air and ground communication equipment and passenger terminals. TAT was ready for business after spending more than five million dollars in one year. Public excitement and enthusiasm was fueled by the participation of millionaires and movie stars and the airline’s consultant, Amelia Earhart. Before one ticket was actually sold, TAT was nicknamed the “Lindy Line.”

 

The officers of TAT kept their shareholders up to date during the months of 1929 by way of a newsletter called “Plane Talk,” generously illustrated with aerial photographs of airport construction, profiles of field managers, and images of the latest equipment. “Plane Talk’s” editor often referred to the new destinations as “ports” and often boasted of forever changing the way Americans (and the rest of the world) would travel.

Bituminus Macadam Runways

For its inaugural flights, TAT chose the Ford (5AT) Tri-Motor which could carry up to 16 passengers. The Ford required a long and stable runway to ensure safety and comfort for passengers, if not for the crew.

 “The Fords, with their square-cut covering of corrugated Alcad, resonated with a vengeance and prolonged exposure could deafen a pilot,” wrote aviation author John Underwood. “They were heavy on the controls and it took muscle to hold a steady course in rough air. But the Ford, with all of its shortcomings, was practically indestructible.”

Although the heavy Fords were “practically indestructible,” TAT knew they had to improve existing landing fields which were mostly dirt and grass. Although not chosen on the TAT route, the landing field at San Diego was typical during 1929. Underwood described it as an “abomination ... with power lines on a hill at one end and a swamp on the other. The 1,500-foot runway was rough and strewn with pockets of sand” that caused landing gear failures (but no fatalities) for Pickwick Airways’ Bach trimotors. TAT would have none of that for its new airports. “Plane Talk” reported massive paving projects such as that for the airport at Columbus with “two bituminous macadam runways, 100 feet wide and the longest, in the direction of the prevailing wind, 3,500 feet long.”

Bituminous macadam was named for John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836), a Scotsman who designed roads for pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles in England. One source describes roads “using broken stones that were laid evenly and tightly so that they covered the soil and formed a hard surface, and were called macadam roads.” The term was probably then pronounced like the name of John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) but with international use, it became “mac-ah-dam.” Macadam is the layering of crushed conglomerates of rock, glass and other materials bound by a sealant (like tar) or bitumen. Thus, the common term for modern runways has become “tarmac.” On the west coast, at Glendale Field (Los Angeles), TAT used an existing 3,000-foot concrete runway, and planned to construct another. With modern runways, aircraft and passengers landed dust free. Field maintenance crews no longer fought with plants, potholes and wild animals.

      

TAT created what was not already invented for its new Ports. Prior to constructing runways and erecting airport buildings at its western-most locations they plowed and leveled huge parcels of land and dug major sewer systems, extended existing power lines or installed generators, and installed night lights. Many of the innovations we now take for granted were first put into use by the TAT system. TAT boasted “standard airport illumination” consisting of red obstruction lights on hangars, radio towers and other structures. White boundary lights outlined the field, and green approach lights at each end of the runways were operated on a separate electrical system.

        

“Daylight landings for Midnight Mail”

By the late 1920s, field floodlights were manufactured by Westinghouse Electric and Mfg. Co., and the smaller, Giant Manufacturing Company of Iowa, as were wind indicators and cone markers that were indispensible for a modern airport. All of TAT’s airports had high-powered lamps affixed to towers as high as 50 feet, and portable lights, five feet tall, were rolled into place as needed. TAT’s pilots followed a trail of beacons previously placed every 10 to 25 miles across the U.S. by the Department of Commerce and maintained by the Lighthouse Bureau. Automatic time clocks and photo-electric alarms controlled the unmanned beacons often at remote sites. Ceiling lights and recording devices measured the height of clouds and the information was relayed over the newly-advanced technology of two-way radio (air/ground) to pilots en route.

A major use of their specially configured tele-type communications system was reporting weather using a machine with “the general appearance of an oversized typewriter with the standard keyboard,” usually set up in a separate shack. Ten of the main landing fields had their own meteorologist who coordinated with the U.S. Weather Bureau and created weather maps twice daily. Typically, a balloon was released on site and the “sounding” observed for calculating “upper air currents” and transmitted to pilots so they could select a favorable wind or avoid headwinds. Messages typed at Columbus could be transmitted to St. Louis or Indianapolis and from there, retransmitted to destinations further west and likewise in reverse.

By September 1929, TAT added two 16-passenger Curtiss Condor biplanes to its eastern routes. The feedback from passengers was glowing with comparisons to the service and comfort of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Everything was in place for success.

But it may have been too much too soon, as ticket sales slumped during the Great Depression. TAT’s bold scheme was already in peril when tragedy struck one month later, and the fate of TAT was sealed.

(To be continued)

TAT Part III of III: Sorrow Amid Success, Advice from Amelia, and the Great Merger

Giacinta Bradley Koontz is an aviation historian, magazine columnist and author. In 2008, she was awarded the National DAR History Medal and has appeared in documentaries on PBS and The History Channel. Learn more about her aviation history projects at www.harrietquimby.org

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