THE INSPECTORS

September 24th 1929 was a kind of turning point in aviation after nearly a year of effort a specially equipped aeroplane took off that morning from Mitchell field on the first of what was to become a routine procedure so common today that it's hardly even noticed the weather was the kind that meant sure trouble to pilots back then and had caused aviation until then remained largely a fair-weather pastime what made the flight important is that it was the first demonstration of flying flying done completely on instruments and radio navigation although that flight covered barely fifteen miles in total it was accomplished without any visual reference except for lighted instruments I know because I was privileged to be that pilot I'm Jimmy Doolittle I've been around airplanes for a long time but I never cease to marvel at how far we've come in aviation since I flew my first aeroplane in 1918 maybe you've seen the kind of airplanes we were flying then I earned my army wings and a Jenny a lot like this one this is a pretty far cry from the 600 mile an hour airplanes which allow you and me to commute safely anywhere on the globe today but regardless of how sophisticated the development of the aeroplane became it couldn't have amounted to much without the development of reliable all-weather navigation equipment by the time we made that 1929 flight which made the headlines every one of those components of the systems had been perfected and tried out dozens of times with only the final proof of them needed by applying the complete system but that's only a part of the story even before we demonstrated a landing system radial ranges were being used to guide airplanes along their intended pathways perhaps you've seen one of these famous airplanes the Ford tri-motor or tin goose as we used to call them soon after the first of these aeroplanes started flying Ford Motor Company supplies between Durbin in Chicago in 1926 Ford installed a low frequency radio range to guide them on their path it was like having a highway in the sky a sure way for an airplane to find the way home the next year after many intensive and exhaustive tests the United States Department of Commerce began installing a vast network of these ranges which became the backbone of the federal airways system but in order to use such navigational aids of the airways and landing system someone would have to constantly guarantee the reliability of the system and if airmen were to trust in them completely it would mean more than checking the equipment on the ground this assignment fell to a breed of dedicated pilot called the inspectors they've been on the job since the 1930s and have written a remarkable record in order that you and I may fly safely we're going to tell you the story of these inspectors and about their part in making aviation travel the safest of all Atlantic City is the home of the FAS research and development center and one of the largest flight inspection officers flight inspection organization is divided into three areas basic system surveillance and jet surveillance like a pyramid basic is concerned with everything on the ground site selection installing commissioning and inspecting all navigational aids from the air at low level let me show you a map there are five thousand one hundred and some-odd nav aids across the country in overseas but the spine of the federal airway systems are these very high frequency amna range and tactical air navigation facilities which for obvious reasons we call Vortech there are about 700 of these vortex stations each is a special radio station broadcasting radio signals in all directions like the spokes of a wheel or if a pilot tunes into a particular station within its range he literally has a radio superhighway to follow right to that station to utilize the system the pilot refers to charts or available radio frequency information when he is ready to get on the aerial Turnpike he adjusts the aamna bearing selected to his course until the needle is centered if he flies the aircraft to keep the needle centered he's on course when the aircraft is to the left of the radio the deviation needle swings right the plane must turn right if the needle is left of center the turn must be made to the left at a glance the pilot can also tell if he is - or from that station but the important thing to the flight inspectors is to see that the vortex is accurate in all directions each nav aid is frequently checked as a matter of routine this one in New York at least three times a year we're going to fly an orbit of the LaGuardia vor actually we'll be flying circles around the installation this azmuth plotting board which we've nicknamed the pizza board represents a model of the vor by flooding fixes of the signals against known landmarks we can tell how accurate the system is for example there's a light beacon at 209 degrees from the station now as the plane passes over that landmark our sensitive electronic equipment records the signal strength identification and accuracy the myriad details of the vor signals are registered on a graph for later study any serious errors would be picked up immediately by the technicians by the time the evaluation is complete the inspectors will have checked out the radials every 10 degrees to ensure that the station is accurate in every direction then at Oklahoma City the inspection course will be recreated on a large model the results carefully studied and a report compiled combined with other reports on the same station a running life history is kept on each VOR of course one of the most important aspects of the basic inspection is the installation of new or improved nav aids this flight operation starts on the ground and works up first a team of electronic engineers check out the terrain to see if there are any obvious problems we look for things like power lines and other structures over there and ask the question beforehand what they might do to our signal in this case we have reason to believe that were far enough away not to have any interferes and this site seems to fulfill our requirements so as soon as we're satisfied with the place we set up a temporary station complete in every respect only mounted on a truck then we can zero in the transmitter check it on the ground and take to the air where it really counts because that's where the pilot uses it long before an airline uses a facility and even before the equipment is installed the inspectors have worked out the details required to make the instrument landing system accurate the ILS provides an approach path for the alignment and descent of an aircraft to the runway it is made up of three basic components a glide slope to furnish vertical guidance and bring the aircraft down to the runway a localizer to provide guidance to the runway centreline and distance markers to indicate distance from the runway the first check is of the glide slope the angled beam leading to the runway the flight inspection aircraft starts a series of trial approaches just the way some future plane would use it the glide slope is at an angle of two and a half to three degrees consequently tolerance within inches is mandatory it looks good up front how does it look on recording okay we got an angle of about two and a half degrees it's about a half a degree low with eighty percent modulation the next ILS component check is of the localizer this transmitter emits signals which provide the pilot course guidance to the runway centerline this directional signal leads the airplane straight in on the landing runway at any point on the course the signal must be crisp clear and accurate the final components of the ILS are the marker beacons which give the pilot distance measurement to the end of the runway a radio signal must be positive enough to light the panel marker lights at the exact distance on the approach course the flight inspectors are checked and rechecked the location to determine that a facility installed here will function properly once an ILS system is installed and functioning it will be rechecked fully as many as six times a year the aeronautical center in Oklahoma City main offices for another layer in the three tier pyramid of flight inspection Safiye semi automatic flight inspection right now there are over 5,000 navigational aids and more on the way either we had to double our equipment and personnel or find a way to do it automatically the answer was Safi in March 1962 we began flying carefully calculated flights based on a 40-mile grid system by flying these routes with special equipment it became possible to monitor the whole airway system one of our sathi aircraft takes off and flies a segment of grid like this then turns and flies another segment 1,200 miles and all now we're able to do more monitoring than we did before and do it at a saving of millions of dollars a year to the taxpayer the Safi airplanes are these turboprop conveyors they're literally flying electronic laboratories 5,000 pounds of equipment 6,000 transistors the most sophisticated electronic gear ever assembled in a civilian aircraft we're coming up to the starting point and as soon as we reach it this tape takes over and flies the plane forest the computer has programmed this flight exactly on tape the program tape flies the plane tunes in receivers and monitors all circuits it might seem this flight is so automatic there's nothing for people to do but although the tape is flying the plane the pilot has his hands full your vor add an effect garble and I'm grateful - forcibly Safiye samples as many as 11 ground stations by activating 11 receivers every half-second closely related to the complex control and data systems of space probes this equipment is storing up thousands upon thousands of electronic facts for the computer and if one small part of the complex system should malfunction it will notify the technician so that he can switch to other components and replace the faulty one but even though the system is primarily engaged in gathering facts for later evaluation immediate problems are brought to the inspectors attention another ground contact is made to correct a minor difficulty discovered in the air the flight inspection office at the FAA s aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City notes the problem and initiates remedial action within minutes there will be a complete review of the vor s history and decisions made as to whether it is safe to operate or whether corrective action is required for optimum operation the third layer in the pyramid of flight inspection is high-altitude these inspectors check the jet routes from 18,000 to 45,000 feet to monitor the more than 90,000 miles of jet routes flight inspection has a large jet aircraft similar to the commercial planes that use these routes here the emphasis is on accuracy of the very high-frequency navigational aids which the Jets use at jet speeds there is no room for error this purpose taking us from Westover Massachusetts to Wilmington North Carolina and then down the east coast of Florida and home again we'll check the principal roofs on this trip we make frequent checks of the jet airways and when two or more pilots anywhere report a facility with a problem it's scheduled for inspection on the first available flight we've got a big job here and we spent a lot of time in our office at 40,000 feet like signs on a Thruway these stations tell a jet pilot his direction - and distance from the station it's checked exactly the way a jet would use it even to the landing approach but what is probably the biggest job for the high altitude team is preparing a new airway like laying out a highway on the ground the airway has to be practical and safe to fly the barnstorming days are over nobody flies an unchartered airway any more than you try to drive your car through a swamp checking out a deer we're away we're looking specifically for any soft spots in the road we want that signal to be reliable all the way nearly six hundred miles an hour we don't want planes to have to detour in order to get a more violent check we must have accurate information on where we are here I'll show you see this is our positioning console it records our location every 30 seconds and checked its information with known accurate stations and once we know where we are for reference the 72 separate facts about those stations we're checking are fed in here by the time the six hour high-altitude mission is over the man and machines of flight inspection will have assembled nearly a million separate readings but readings need interpretation here at the aeronautical center in Oklahoma City all information from sake and jet inspections from the ground to the edge of space is transferred to punch cards we then feed the information to the computers the end result will be thousands of facts from these readings in one short hour the answer to any given problem will be down on paper the end result is a detailed report correlated matched studied and boiled down to one piece of paper pilots are assured that they can fly their routes where intended arrive safely and on schedule unlike those days before inspections today flying is as it should be no Gamble's no guesses no maybes where air navigation is concerned the inspectors have blazed a trail that pilots may safely follow quite inspection of the US military navigation facilities extend this service beyond the continental United States this crew is off for a periodic check of navaids in Greenland and Iceland near the rim of the Arctic Circle keflavik from the rugged shores of Iceland to the coral reefs of Wake Island airliners must be guided over land and water safely swiftly and convened from sea level to the edge of space day and night fair weather or foul the Azores down the slot to West Berlin in one year the inspectors will fly 17 million miles Diamondhead Waikiki flying is an exacting business nothing but the best will do the nav aids must always be operating and effective without them flying to a distant airport could be like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack with nav aids we not only find but thread the needle the distance from Hawaii in the mid Pacific to Beirut Lebanon in the Mideast has shrunk because of jet aircraft the FAA encourages promotes and assists other countries in establishment of their own flight inspection capability and in the promotion of aviation safety through the flight inspection of navigation aids our navigational aids extend high above the weather where modern airliners keep you safely on your way mark at 7:04 descend to 1500 cleared ILS runway 1/3 approach report passing outer marker to Atlantic City tower on one 18.9 er covered Roger American 704 leaving 2,500 feet over ladies and gentlemen would you kindly raise your seat back to the upright position Fernanda I played the serve the no-smoking side like crew starts the descent fully aware their instruments are completely reliable every movement is monitored on radar on the control center and if the ILS signal leading the airplane to the runway failed a standby transmitter would take over immediately in automatic chances are the flight crew in the aircraft would never know of the transmitter switch even before the aircraft is down steps would be taken to notify maintenance personnel of the malfunction so that it can be repaired just by looking at the gauges dials and needles in the cockpit the pilot can tell if he's descending at the right angle whether he's straight with the runway or whether is too high too low or too far right or left this ILS system is only a small part of today's radio and electronic aids that enable a pilot to take off or touch down safely regardless of the weather or time of day if you ask a flight inspector about the work he does he'll tell you it's demanding hard work but the long hours and tedious requirements are well worth it in terms of the pride he feels for having established a system that makes a VA ssin the safest of all travel we've come a long ways in aviation people used to consider all of us who flew as something of daredevil today practically all consider flying a matter of routine among the important reasons certainly by the development of navigational aids and the inspectors who keep the watch