The Tulsa Aviation Arrow is a throwback to a bygone era when aviation was in its infancy. It was part of a large network that were stepping stones across the United States for pilots to use as they carried mail and packages from city to city. This was before radio and GPS navigation when aviators had to brave weather and darkness in order to deliver the mail around America!
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Aviation History
Early aviation history from the 1920s was a brave endeavor for all the pilots involved. Aviation navigation, radio communications, fueling, and airports were all new inventions that were being regularly tested by barnstormers, the government, and rich magnates alike! The US Postal Service was one of the first to recognize the advantages of airplanes and speed. The idea of specialized airmail was born and letters could now cross the country in just a few short days.
Aviation Arrows
These aviation arrows were important because they were added information for pilots to use to travel between airports. There were airway charts that pilots used to bounce from beacon to beacon in order to know they were on the correct route. These routes were published all over the United States and maps, routes, coordinates, and identifiers were noted on these charts. You can see an example route between Dallas and Oklahoma City Below.
Modern Navigation
Today’s aircraft use a mix of spaced-based navigations systems, ground-based navigation systems, and inertial reference systems that allow aircrafts extreme precision for navigation purposes. Intertial systems require a start location to be input by the pilot and then precise gyros, lasers, and accelerometers measure the movement of the airplane across the world to determine its position over time. Ground-based systems like VOR and ILS are devices on the ground that broadcast signals that aircraft instruments can receive and present navigation data on its location relative to the ground-based device. Finally, spaced-based systems like GPS and WAAS are used by aircraft to determine their position to within a few feet from a time signal from space.
We’ve come a long way since the days of following roads and railroads across the United States in order to travel and fly from place to place and “close enough” was good enough. These aviation arrows are a part of that history. Today’s aviation is a complex mix of radio signals, lasers and space signals that can provide accuracies to just a few feet and margins are just a few inches at times. It’s amazing to think these items are still around and have a small following and an even more interesting history!