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UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: Don Ledger <dledger@istar.ca>
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 22:33:10 +0100
Fwd Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 23:19:41 -0400
Subject: Re: Aircraft/UFO Encounters Prior to 1942


> Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 15:38:34 -0400 (EDT)
> To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
> From: Michael Christol <mchristo@mindspring.com>
> Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: Aircraft/UFO Encounters Prior to 1942

> >Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 15:48:42 +0100
> >From: Don Ledger <dledger@istar.ca>
> >To: updates@globalserve.net
> >Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: Aircraft/UFO Encounters Prior to 1942


> >> I checked and found an article about lights being sighted
> >> outside of town at night.

> >Hello Mike, Jan and List

> >A thought here. I might be wrong about airships and dirigables but
> >during the years after 1903 and well afterwards, lights on airplanes was
> >a luxury in expense and weight that could not be afforded. I'm almost
> >certain that electric lights on airships of the periods mentioned from
> >1894 etc. up until the early 20s would have been forbidden due to the
> >danger of spark induced explosions. Generators were spark prone and
> >spark free switches were virtually unknown for battery operation. That
> >left gas operated lights and I'm sure they would have been even more of
> >a hazard on hydrogen filled airships.

> >Aircraft on the other hand did not begin to employ lights until the mid
> >twenties on commercial passenger carriers. Generators, voltage
> >regulators and batteries on smaller aircraft were a weight penalty
> >luxury not deemed necessary where engines were already overweight and
> >underpowered and adding a generator would load those same engines down
> >robbing badly needed horsepower.

> There were also carbide and oil lamps in use at that time.

Not in any airplane before the twenties, at least that's my take on the
info. I'm a pilot and an airplane buff anyway. I've seen alot of
antiques in my day and recall seeing nothing in the way of lighting
systems in the machines of the teens and twenties. I have no doubt that
airships had the room but suspect some type of low level lights strictly
for cabin purposes during the bombing raids over London during WW I.

Carbide lights would imply generators for the high current, and oil
lights in a hydrogen filled gas bag sounds doubtful to me. What I'm
saying is if any of these sightings of airships from 1894 til say 1910
or 1915 reported brilliant lights as are the case nowadays, then you
could rule out the manmade versions in use at that time. The power was
just not there.

When you considered the instruments in use then, everything was either
magnetic, pneumatic, dynamic pressured or gravity dependent. In the open
cockpit the pilot relied on the wind on his/her cheek for slip
information and the seat of the pants for a lot of other things.
If you want to eliminate man made airships as possible reasons for UFO
sightings that far back, then I think this is one reason to eliminate
many of them.

Don Ledger