Airway beacon

An airway beacon (US) or aerial lighthouse (UK and Europe) was a rotating light assembly mounted atop a tower.

[3] Use of the lighthouses has declined with the advent of radio navigation aids such as NDB (non-directional beacon), VOR (VHF omnidirectional ranging) and DME (distance measuring equipment).

[citation needed] In the Netherlands, gas holders were painted with an arrow pointing north and two letters identifying their location.

Today, most of the beacons have been removed, but the State of Montana continues to maintain several as navigation aids in mountainous terrain.

[6] One beacon is preserved for historical purposes in Saint Paul, Minnesota[7] at the Indian Mounds Park on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River.

[8] A rotating airway beacon has been in continuous operation at the summit of Rocky Butte in Portland, Oregon since 1929, though it was officially decommissioned during the 1960s.

Recently, the beacon at Grants, New Mexico was restored for historic preservation, using original items found at other nearby sites.

[14] To help remember the letters and their sequence number, pilots memorized the following: "When Undertaking Very Hard Routes, Keep Direction By Good Methods."

Illustration of Airway beacon, showing designated number. In this example, for units digit "1", Morse code should be " .-- " ( W ).
An aerial lighthouse located in Pansio , Turku , Finland
The last operational aerial lighthouse in the UK, at the RAF College main building at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire
Gas holder Goliath in Eindhoven (designated by the letters EH ) in the 1930s
Two gasholders in Leeuwarden .
Remnants of Transcontinental Air Mail Route Beacon 37A, atop a bluff in St. George, Utah , with concrete arrow indicating the direction to the next beacon
An airway beacon in Saint Paul, Minnesota , built in 1929 and restored in the 1990s. It sits on top of a 110-foot (34 m) steel tower in Indian Mounds Park . [ 7 ]