Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
1–10 of 50 posts
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#2Is there any plausible reason such arrows would be broken up on purpose? In my mind, I would want more things like this to exist; large physical failsafe markers seem like a great idea.
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#3Even modern pilots (without GPS) use rivers and highways. Why couldn't 1920s pilots use railroads?
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#4Even modern pilots (without GPS) use rivers and highways. Why couldn't 1920s pilots use railroads?
But planes and pilots can take short cuts over mountains and terrain that railroads have to go around. Navigating these shorter routes might have been harder but would definitely be worth it in fuel and time savings
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#5Even modern pilots (without GPS) use rivers and highways. Why couldn't 1920s pilots use railroads?
But planes and pilots can take short cuts over mountains and terrain that railroads have to go around. Navigating these shorter routes might have been harder but would definitely be worth it in fuel and time savings
Also night time and all the roads looking the same after a while.
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#6Even modern pilots (without GPS) use rivers and highways. Why couldn't 1920s pilots use railroads?
The arrows and beacons were designed for night usage, where it's a lot harder to see railroad tracks. The arrows themselves seem to be much more the supplemental part of the system, to give a general idea where the next beacon's going to be.
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#7We had a tower with light in my town. We're right on the Pacific coast to the tower was inland and behind a hill so it couldn't be mistaken for a lighthouse by passing ships.
The tower and shed are still there and are used for communication antennas.
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#8Is there any plausible reason such arrows would be broken up on purpose? In my mind, I would want more things like this to exist; large physical failsafe markers seem like a great idea.
These arrows, probably not so much, as they are pretty much all in the middle of nowhere. However, general concrete recycling is useful because breaking up existing, unused concrete for works projects tends to be cheaper than, and is more environmentally friendly than, quarrying.
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#9We had a tower with light in my town. We're right on the Pacific coast to the tower was inland and behind a hill so it couldn't be mistaken for a lighthouse by passing ships. The tower and shed are still there and are used for communication antennas.
> behind a hill so it couldn't be mistaken for a lighthouse by passing ships.
I wonder why they didn't just put it on ship maps as an additional lighthouse.
Re: Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape
#10We had a tower with light in my town. We're right on the Pacific coast to the tower was inland and behind a hill so it couldn't be mistaken for a lighthouse by passing ships. The tower and shed are still there and are used for communication antennas.
> behind a hill so it couldn't be mistaken for a lighthouse by passing ships. I wonder why they didn't just put it on ship maps as an additional lighthouse.
Lighthouses are regularly used for navigation, so they need to have almost guaranteed up-time. Don't think that would always be the case for these particular kinds of lights.