Word: beams
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Time after time, the flyers circle the field on instruments and slant into cautious approaches to the landing runway. An auto-pilot steers them along the ILS (Instrument Landing System) beam. But while they are making their automatic approach, Rube and his copilot keep up a constant chatter on the radio. They sing out when they first spot the ground, report familiar landmarks, announce the first gleam of runway lights. And every word is recorded on the ground...
...short distance from the runway, a 240-watt searchlight circles slowly, its narrow beam arcing day and night across the base of low-lying clouds. Only 200 feet away, a parabolic mirror points overhead to gather the searchlight's reflected glow and focus it on a photoelectric cell. As the clouds rise or fall, reflections vary. In the radio shack, remote-reading indicators record the angle at which the searchlight beam bounces back. Measuring cloud height is then a matter of simple trigonometry...
...Clearer View. After three years and some $50,000 in research, a group of headlight manufacturers headed by General Electric Co. announced an improved sealed-beam headlight for autos which will be available within two years. The new light, approved by a subcommittee of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, gives wider vision down the righthand side of the road, has greater overall range, cuts down on flareback in fog and rain, thus virtually eliminates the need for separate fog lights...
Reader Boone (TIME, July 6), aiming with eyes closed, still hit the nail on the head. Archimedes did indeed "doodle with theory" when the Romans hit Syracuse ... He tirelessly doodled up military engines of such bewildering variety that the Roman marines broke and ran whenever a beam showed itself above the city wall. It does credit to his legend that he is said to have fired part of the enemy fleet with burning glasses. Thus Syracuse resisted for three years until betrayed, almost entirely through the efforts of an aroused intellectual, who took no special pride in practical accomplishment...
...Landing. For foul-weather landings, the common system includes both radar-directed, ground-controlled approach (GCA) so popular with the military, and the instrument-landing system (ILS) that is preferred by airline pilots. At airports equipped with both systems, planes can make their final approach down the ILS radio beam, while alert ground crews give extra guidance through...