KEEP DIRECTION BY GOOD METHODS
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In an age before electronic navigation, pilots were at the will of the sky. By day, they followed fixed geographical features below such as roads, railways, and rivers; however, come nightfall, planes were to be grounded, rendering them subordinate to the round-the-clock reliability of trains. If a pilot could not see, a pilot could not fly.
Keep Direction By Good Methods follows the physical remains of the American transcontinental lighted airway system, which sought to visually guide pilots across the country through night’s darkness, making possible a burgeoning aviation industry. Beginning in 1923, regularly positioned beacon towers were erected from coast to coast allowing pilots to navigate from point to point along set routes between major cities. Construction of these lighted signals continued beyond the first instrument-only blind flight in 1929, through the 1930s.
Now, nearly a century later, while few of these beacons are still illuminated, large steel-framed towers dot the United States, alluding to a technological landscape of days gone by. In many cases the towers no longer stand, leaving behind their often-arrow-shaped concrete foundations acting like found earthworks pointing forth into the expansive topography ahead. Unlike the palpable presence of other continuous networks, like the interstate system or transcontinental railways, the lighted airways have a seemingly invisible scale now only perceivable at ground level when standing atop the footings, peering off in the direction of the following site.
After generations of focus on settling the American West, the United States shifted its attention upwards and laid claim to the skies. In doing so it condensed the vast landscape—one that would have taken days to traverse by train—into a single day’s journey. However, as aviation progressed, flying higher and further than ever imagined, no longer were the terrestrial supports necessary; no more are flight and navigation dependent upon sight. Entropically, the beacons and foundations are fading back into the landscape that they helped to overcome and redefine.