fAGE FOUR
THE PIEDMONITOR
DECEMBER, 1959
Month's Personality
Knows Ventriloquism
“What’s your name, young
man?”
“LeRoy R. O’Day.” .
“Hmmm. What does the ‘R’
stand for?”
“Rover.”
“Rover! ? !”
“Yes, Daddy wanted a dog.”
So goes the conversation be
tween O. E. “Bud” Halsey, Pied
mont’s city sales manager at
Richmond, and LeRoy, his af
fable dummy.
When Bud was just a young
ster, he fervently read the adver
tisements on ventriloquism. He
answered many of them through
the years but, despite an intense
interest in “vent,” did not se
riously consider taking up the
hobby until he read the follow
ing ad:
“Guaranteed to make you a
ventriloquist—Throw your voice
—$50, dummy included.”
That was in 1953. Bud says, “I
got the dummy, the book and I
was in business.” He spent hours
looking into mirrors to practice
control of lip movements. Two
promoted into sales at Rich
mond.
Purple Heart
During the second World War,
Bud was in active combat with
the 28th Infantry Division in
Europe. He participated in the
Battle of the Bulge, carrying a
bazooka. During combat he won
a Purple Heart as “a matter of
circumstance,” or so he modestly
reports.
Flying used to be a hobby for
Bud. Now, most leisure time is
taken up with golf or a variety
of musical instruments. Bud is
married to the former Phyllis
Baird of Bangor, Maine. They
have no children—with the ex
ception of LeRoy.
Office At Home
Work hours for Bud and Pied
mont are busy ones in the Rich
mond and Lynchburg areas. His
“office” is at home, except when
he uses that of American Air
lines, with which Piedmont has
a joint ticket office.
And his reputation in repre
senting Piedmont is summed up
by Spencer Rice, American’s dis
trict sales manager, who says
“There’s not another airline man
better liked or more respected
in Richmond than Bud.”
BUD and LeROY
months after receiving the kit
he gave his first program.
Entertainment Group
He was then in West Virginia,
his native state. Soon afterwards
he joined an entertainment
group called “Programs For Hos
pitalized Veterans.” With the
group he traveled into various
rehabilitation centers to intro
duce LeRoy.
When asked his father’s name,
LeRoy replies, “O’Day O’Day.”
“No, I mean his first name,”
Bud explains.
“O’Day,” persists LeRoy.
“Now, how can his first name
be O’Day and his last name be
O’Day?” Bud reasons.
“He stutters.”
Bud is also a magician who
makes objects disappear and
then reappear in unlikely places.
(This writer found a salt shaker
in her coat pocket after visiting
a drug store fountain for a
“Coke.”)
‘Talking To Self’
Speaking of ventriloquism Bud
says, “All you’re doing is stand
ing on a stage talking to your
self.” He points out that it is a
hobby that takes a lot of prac
tice. “Consequently,” he explains,
“I have gotten mighty rusty, es
pecially on lip movements.”
While working with the enter
tainment group, whose headquar
ters were in Charlotte, Bud met
several people from Piedmont
and “gave up ventriloquism” to
become station agent in August,
1955. Nine months later he was
Crowe Promoted
From INT Sales
To City Manager
W. A. Crowe, who has been
with Piedmont almost 11 years,
succeeded H. B. Slater as Cincin
nati sales man
ager November
16. Slater re
signed Novem
ber 13 to ac
cept a sales po-
sition with
American A i r-
lines at Wash
ington, D. C.
Crowe was Crowe
sales representative at Winston-
Salem for the past two years.
He joined the company in 1949
as a flight attendant. After mili
tary leave, during which time
he served in the Korean conflict,
he became sales representative
at Cincinnati.
He and his wife Florence have
moved to Cincinnati, where
Crowe will take over the sales
work in the metropolitan area.
General Sales Manager W. G.
McGee announced the new posi
tion and said, “Crowe has made
excellent progress in sales work.
We feel that the promotion is
richly deserved and that he will
continue to do an outstanding
job for Piedmont in Cincinnati,”
Janet M, Fuemler has been em
ployed to replace Janice Somers,
who resigned several weeks ago.
J *
NAVIGATIONAL AID of a secondary nature—pilot radar—gets a routine mechanical check by INT
Lead Radio Technician Carl E, Mullins, as he inspects connections on the Bendix screen. The checks are
made periodically as part of overall maintenance. If parts become defective, they are replaced.
From Bonfires To Radar Beams
Navigation Aids Developed
ATA—In the early days flying
was a strictly visual—a daytime,
fair-weather—operation, A pilot
kept his bearing by following
railroad tracks or highways,
marking progress by sighting
landmarks, “Instrumentation”
usually consisted only of a com
pass and altimeter.
When pilot Jack Knight made
the first air mail night flight
from North Platte, Nebraska, to
Chicago in 1921, his navigation
aids consisted of bonfires, red
flares and a road map.
Bonfires Replaced
In the mid-Twenties rotating
light beacons replaced bonfires.
Spotted at intervals along major
routes, they guided pilots at
night in good weather. They
were supplemented by a ring of
lights around the airport so
pilots could spot their destina
tions.
The advent of the LF/MF
Four Course Radio Range in
1927 was a big step toward navi
gation in weather, LF/MF means
“low frequency-medium frequen
cy (the frequency band just be
low the standard home radio
band),
“Four Course” refers to the
fact that a ground transmitter
sends out radio beams in four
different directions, usually
pointed along an airway or
toward a nearby airport.
Marker Beacon
This aid was supplemented in
the late twenties by another
called the “m a r k e r beacon,”
which was not a light but a
transmitter along a route that
gives out a radio signal. Thus,
the four-course radio gave the
pilot directional information; the
radio marker beacon indicated
how far he was along his route
Until 1930, radio communica
tion was one-way—from ground
to plane—and in code. The radio
telephone of the early thirties
brought two-way voice communi
cation.
Throughout the 30’s these de
vices, combined into an airway
system, were adequate for traf
fic demands. But lack of air
ways became a major problem
in the early 40’s,
Installation of more LF/MF
ranges to permit more airways
was difficult because the radio
frequency band was already
crowded in high-density areas.
And because the band was ex
tremely susceptible to static,
communication frequently broke
down in bad weather when
needed most.
A Better Beam
A most important post-war
step was the move to a new ra
dio band—the very high fre
quency (VHF) area—just above
the frequency band on the home
FM radio. It’s virtually static-
free,
VHF permitted a new range
system, far more useful than the
LF/MF system. This was the
Very High Frequency Omnidi
rectional Range, or simply VOR,
The VOR transmitter fans out a
beam in all directions.
When using the LF/MF sys
tem, a pilot listens for radio
code signals to determine his
relative position to the range
and the “on-course” beam. And
the LF/MF range offers only
four “on-course” signals. But
when using VOR, an indicator
on his instrument panel shows
bearing to the radio station
tuned in.
DMET apparatus sends out a
pair of signals picked up by a
special ground installation and
bounced back to the aircraft.
Fares, Rates, Routing Will Change In New Year
A general revision of passen
ger fares and freight rates and
a new local fare routing format
will be put into effect at the
same time service is begun at
Staunton,
However, the inaugural of the
new service has nothing to do
with the revision, except to pro
vide a convenient date for mak
ing the changes effective. The
changes have been in the making
for several months. Director of
Tariffs and Schedules F, Preston
Lincoln said.
Passenger fares will be re
vised to meet published ti'unk
fares and to make other neces
sary adjustments. Generally, the
revised fares will affect Cincin
nati, Huntington and Charles
ton on the one hand and Wash
ington on the other. Also affected
will be several other interme
diate cities.
Freight rate changes will
bring increases and some reduc
tions, The revisions are being
made to equalize trunk rates and
to round off charges to even 50
cents’ wherever practical.
The new local fare routing for
mat will spell out in more detail
the routing by which a passen
ger can travel. It will show each
and every allowable intermediate
city at which the passenger can
stop over if he so desires.
The elapsed time is translated
into a distance figure on the
cockpit panel,
A later device brought mea
surement of two more dimen
sions — distance and ground
speed. The pilot’s airspeed indi
cator tells him how fast he is
going through the air, not his
progress over the ground. An
electronic device, called Distance
Measuring Equipment or DMET,
can tell him his distance from a
ground station.
Through the combination of
the VOR (for direction) and
DMET (for distance), the pilot
knows his bearing to a station
(and the distance to or from it)
and can compute his rate of
ground speed. The combined ele-
m e n t s are known as VOR/
DMET.
The government established
the first set of rules for air traf
fic in 1926. In 1935, the infant
scheduled airlines established the
first control centers at Cleve
land, Newark and Chicago. In
1936, the Bureau of Air Com-
m e r c e of the Department of
Commerce took over the airline-
operated control centers. This
was the start of the air traffic
control (ATC) service as a gov
ernment function.
Centers Set Up
During the next three years,
centers were established at Pitts
burgh, Detroit, Washington, Los
Angeles and Oakland. By 1939,
there were 27,074 miles of radio
monitored routes, or airways.
They were served by 11 air traf
fic control centers which passed
instruction to aircraft engaged
in instrument flight.
To handle traffic landing and
taking off, control towers were
located at 52 airports. At that
time there were only 29,000 air
craft in use including military,
commercial and private. And few
planes cruised faster than 150
m.p.h.
An important post-war device
for navigation and air traffic
control was radar. The radar
transmitter fires bursts of ultra-
high-f requency radio waves
which do not penetrate solid ob
jects. Instead, the waves bounce
back,
A variety of ground radar
equipment is used for traffic
control. Airborne radar, though
not a traffic control aid, is used
by airlines to detect storm
clouds, allowing a pilot to detour
to avoid turbulence.