Page 28 - January 2015 Volume 9, Number1

that system was the earth inductor com- pass, which compared to a conventional liquid compass fea- tured significantly improved stability during flight as well as superior accuracy.
As each leg of the tour was flown, the earth inductor compass controller mounted on the left side of the instrument panel showed deviation from the intended course, which had been carefully plotted the night before by Goldsborough. He prepared each set of charts with checkpoints marked at 10-mile increments.
The Ford Tour got
off to a safe start on
August 7, with pilot
Louie Meister flying a
Buhl/Verville Airster
being the first to
depart. The 2,585-mile
route took pilots from
Dearborn, Michigan to
Milwaukee, Des Moines, Lincoln, Nebraska; Wichita, Kansas City, Moline, Illinois; Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and finally, back to Dearborn. As the tour progressed, it quickly became obvious to competitors that the Travel Air entry was well prepared for the navigation challenges that lie ahead. As each leg of the route unfolded, Goldsborough informed Beech what compass heading to fly, despite having to override Walter’s occasional disagreement.
In addition to Walter Beech and Brice Goldsborough, Andy Hufford, a mechanic for the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, and T.J. Herbert posed with the winning Travel Air and its crew. Herbert was president of the National Aeronautics Association’s Cleveland chapter. (MARY LYNN OLIVER)
Working in concert with the earth induc- tor compass was a special drift indicator mounted on the left side of the fuselage below the aft cockpit. The device consisted of an adjustable scale incorporating two sight wires and an eyecup for viewing the ground. By adjusting the scale to match the biplane’s altitude, the distance between the two wires was always exactly one mile. Using the preselected ground checkpoints every 10 miles as a reference, Goldsborough would look through the eyecup and sight wires at the ground passing below. When a checkpoint passed beneath the front wire he would activate a specially-built stopwatch, and stopped timing when the checkpoint passed the rear wire. The stopwatch was cali- brated in miles per hour instead of minutes and seconds – a useful feature that obviated any need to calculate the Travel Air’s forward speed. By taking drift readings as the flight progressed and com- paring results with previous drift checks, any change in the winds aloft were detected and course corrections passed on to the pilot. Another unique instrument was the Pioneer “Air Log” unit. The ingenious device calculated how may miles the airplane had flown through the air and was mount- ed on the right interplane strut. Using wind power and suction from a small venturi, the instru- ment provided a cockpit display of both total miles flown and dis- tance per leg. Goldsborough al- ways knew how far the ship had flown as well as the distance re- maining on each leg before arriv-
ing at the next destination.
JANUARY 2015
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26 • KING AIR MAGAZINE