ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a system of navigational aids by which aircraft could be flown on a course in fog or in any condition of visibility or no visibility. It summarizes the work done at the Bureau of Standards between 1926 and 1929 for the purpose of making possible blind flying and landing of aircraft. The radiobeacon system was an outgrowth of the project undertaken by the Bureau of Standards for the Army Air Service in 1920. The Air Service had requested the Bureau to devise a method whereby a directional transmission would serve as a guide to airplanes along a chosen course. It was fortuitous that the inventive talents of Harry Diamond and his team made possible the assembly of the first visual-type radiobeacon system that enabled a pilot to keep on course and to know his approximate position at all times while in flight.
