An airway beacon or aerial lighthouse was a rotating light assembly mounted atop a tower. These were once used extensively in the United States for visual navigation by airplane pilots along a specifi
Illustration of Airway beacon, showing designated number. In this example, for units digit "1", Morse code should be ".--" (W).
An aerial lighthouse located in Pansio, Turku, Finland
The last operational aerial lighthouse in the UK, at the RAF College main building at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire
Gas holder Goliath in Eindhoven (designated by the letters EH) in the 1930s
The Transcontinental Airway System was a navigational aid deployed in the United States during the 1920s.
1928 Commemorative Beacon on Sherman Hill
The remnants of Transcontinental Air Mail Route Beacon 37A, which was located atop a bluff in St. George, Utah, in the United States. With concrete arrows indicating the direction of the next beacon, a rotating light tower, and a shed that usually held a generator and fuel tanks, these beacons were once situated every 10 miles (16 km) along air routes across the United States beginning around 1923.
A concrete arrow of the former Transcontinental Airway System in Walnut Creek, California, in August 2018.