AERONAUTICS: Road Marker

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Last week at Farnborough Aerodrome, the British Air Ministry tested a simple device to overcome the fog hazard in flying. A tethered balloon was floated 100 yds. above a 90-ft. layer of fog and one-half mile from the field. A plane was fitted with a trailing weight suspended by a few feet of wire. Approaching the hidden field, the pilot oriented himself by the known position of the balloon, put his ship into a glide of prescribed angle, leveled off when a red light on his instrument board told him the suspended weight had touched ground.