What are These Giant Concrete Arrows Across the American Landscape?

We have one just outside Reno, west to Mogul, on a ridge above the river. I rode my bike there and wondered what it was.
39.510021, -119.922407

Where do the airway beacons still light the night sky? In mountainous western Montana the Aeronautics Division of the Montana Department of Transportation operates seventeen airway (off airport) beacons. You'll find them all on the Great Falls Sectional Chart. And you'll find airway beacons at museums such as the Western New Mexico Aviation Heritage Museum at the Grants-Milan Municipal Airport next to Interstate 40 at Grants, NM. The adjacent generator shed includes a Kohler gasoline-powered 1.5 Kw electric generator. Two of these powered many of the airway beacons. Since many beacons were in remote locations, the beacon assembly included an automatic bulb-changer that swiveled a backup bulb into place when the first bulb burned out. Airway beacon towers are also features of air museums at Cottage Grove and at Hood River in Oregon.

For those interested in more info on these transcontinental arrows, check out this website:
http://lightpixiestudio.com/giant-arrows-across-america/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LightPixieStudio+%28Light+Pixie+Studio%29

Very interesting.
Thank you !

Amazing! Thanks for posting this.

I am headed to Google Earth using your map photo to see what I can find... :)

Thanks for this fascinating article!

Are these markers depicted on Sectionals

Classic Sulak find!

Gawd, I hate to admit it, but I remember seeing the airway beacons. There was on on the top of the mountain above Strasburg, VA. I climbed the tower once back in the late '60s. There was no light on it by then tho'.

There are 3 or 4 just in the St George, UT area.

Ahhhh, the good old days...

good to know that something can help you on the groud

Add that route to my bucket list...

Add that route to my bucket list...

Well..........Apparently it worked back then...............for awhile.

We've come a long way to the new navegation procedures, ADS-B ITP.

If anyone knows of additional markers, let me know. I would like to plot them all on my Google. Maybe I will get to visit a few someday.

Apparently there's an arrow about an hour's drive west of Albuquerque. I'm going to try to find it on Saturday.

Very interesting to read about the arrows. There is still operating beacon in Missoula, Montana.

I've tried to find the couple left on the route in the west Utah, Wyq, but never been lucky.

Very interesting info. I had heard of them, but have never seen this site.. Great info. thanks.

Thirty years ago while travelling by car from New Delhi to Agra in India, I noticed very tall posts made of mud brick and spaced horizon distance from each other. In the days before roads these were placed to be guides across trackless territory. Something like your wagon trains used the buttes out west to guide them. Whether flying or driving they found ways to get there.

A good site with lots of pictures: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/res/Education_in_BLM/Learning_Landscapes/For_Kids/History_Mystery/hm4/airmail_and_airway.html

There is also a tower to the east of Salt Lake that is visible from the city. On the north side of Emigration Canyon.

There is also a tower to the east of Salt Lake that is visible from the city. On the north side of Emigration Canyon.

Livermore ca. airport LVK has a old light tower from the airmail days.
But it was moved there from the old location.

Has anyone tried to follow these for fun?

There are 3 or 4 just in the St George, UT area. I believe they are 10 miles apart. I think the one in the first picture is the one near Quail creek reservoir.

Why were these necessary? The compass as a navigation aid was about 1000 yeas old when planes took to the air. The cheesesteak and the sextant both came from Philadelphia, the latter in 1757. Surely by the 20th century accurate navigation would have a become a well practiced art.

What did the pilots that flew airmail @ five cents per half ounce to Hawaii use to get there? Floating arrows in the Pacific?

When the Interstate highway system was built in the 1950s every five-mile strip had to have within it a stretch 5,280 feet (one mile) to accommodate military aircraft. It was paid for under the National Defense Act, the only way Ike could have had it done.

Medicine Bow, Wyoming still has the beacon tower standing at the base of the arrow, although the lens has been shot out by knuckleheads. The generator shack is mostly intact also.

I went into Google Earth and Asked for Aviation Arrows Across USA. One came up in UT on top of a mesa. Very inovative inovative indeed.