San Francisco Airport Control Tower Beacon
A stop on Hiller Aviation Museum: Unofficial Guide, a free self-guided tour.
Before radio navigation, pilots found airports at night by looking for rotating beacons, powerful lights that flashed in a pattern visible for miles. In the 1920s and 1930s, the government built chains of beacons along airmail routes, so pilots could fly from one to the next across the country.
Airport beacons still exist today. A green and white flashing light marks a civilian land airport.
Look for the large rotating beacon on display, once used at a Bay Area airport. Its big lens and powerful lamp show how much light was needed to reach pilots at a distance.
Beacons were part of the network of ground facilities, including radio stations and later radar, that made flying in bad weather and at night possible.
More on Wikipedia: Airway beacon
Stops on this tour
- Boeing 747-100 Cockpit and Forward Fuselage
- Hiller Flying Platform
- Boeing Condor High-Altitude Reconnaissance UAV
- NASA AD-1 Oblique Wing Research Aircraft
- Wright Flyer Replica and Early Flight Exhibit
- Black Diamond - 1910 California Pioneer Aircraft
- Grumman HU-16 Albatross Amphibious Aircraft
- Boeing 737-200 Cockpit
- Flight Sim Zone
- Women in Aviation Gallery
- Aircraft Engine Collection
- Lockheed YO-3 Quiet Star
- San Francisco Airport Control Tower Beacon
- Drone Plex and Future of Flight Exhibit
- Michael King Smith Research Library and Museum Store