Town planners should be forced to spell out the name of a town (or an abbreviation) in the road layout of a suburb, to aid identification from the air. If you want to save money, confine this just to towns on commercial air routes.
-- hippo, Oct 23 2009

Non-Directional Beacon http://en.wikipedia...-directional_beacon
Old technology, but works well. [8th of 7, Oct 23 2009]

If talking to someone who doesn't know London geography, I have resorted more than once to explaining that I live in the top half of the first E in Eastenders - with this Idea, I wouldn't need to.
-- zen_tom, Oct 23 2009


It wouldn't work well during the day, although it might be possible at night.

The problem is viewing angle. In most aircraft it's difficult to see things directly below, and at higher altitudes terrain can be partially or completely obscured by cloud. Since an aircraft can approach a point on the ground from any bearing, only the 90, 180 and 270 radials would give a good view of the word (Chinese ideograms are a possibility though)

At night, towns appear from a distance like spider's webs of light, the granularity only become obvious at lower altitudes and shorter distances.

However, if street lighting fixtures were equipped with an lamp that shone upwards (surrounded by a shroud with a 45 degree angle) with a contrasting colour, the town could flash its ID in Morse, just like an NDB does using RF.
-- 8th of 7, Oct 23 2009


//It wouldn't work well during the day//
Make the roads out of mirrors.
-- calum, Oct 23 2009


//or an abbreviation//
That's cost you my bun.
cf. Llanfairpwll gwyngyll gogerychwyrn drobwllllan tysilio gogogoch
-- Jinbish, Oct 23 2009


I meant abbreviations only where there are commonly agreed ones - e.g. "Brum" for Birmingham, "Pompey" for Portsmouth, etc.
-- hippo, Oct 23 2009


Rather than ripping up existing streets etc, perhaps this fine idea could be acheived by enhemming each sizeable town with a squiggly ring road in perfect cursive, with town councils free to elect to use copperplate, provided they have the funds.
-- calum, Oct 23 2009


In the interest of all the existing towns with extant serviceable ancient streets in place, wouldn't it make more sense to rename the town into a sort of Chinese character that was indicative of the general shape of the town?
-- bdag, Oct 23 2009


I forsee a lot of new suburbs with names that consist mainly of the letters X, T and L. I'm certainly not moving to LTXXTL.
-- wagster, Oct 23 2009


I'll be curious to see what the root cause of that one turns out to be. I'll wager those pilot's goose is cooked.
-- normzone, Oct 23 2009


Really ?

A civil aircraft is going to be moving about 450 knots - plus any possible tailwind. Ground speed could easily be 500 MPH. You can cover 150 miles in a very short time. And you can't just throw it into a rate 2 turn, unfortunately there are passengers .... so a 150 mile overshoot is a 10 minute lapse.

ALL pilots make mistakes. The pilot that does not make mistakes has not been born. The mark of a good pilot is how well they detect and recover from their mistakes.
-- 8th of 7, Oct 23 2009


//The mark of a good pilot is how well they detect and recover from their mistakes//

A good attitude to life in general, really.
-- wagster, Oct 23 2009



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