I have often wondered about these so-called airplane markers. Why, I wondered, is the one used by Superman the only one I've ever seen or heard of? And why is it at the North Pole? How many planes fly over the Pole, anyway? Wouldn't someone say, how did that get here? And after 1950, say, why would anyone use one?
I suspect the huge discussion of air markers that took place during WWII was remembered by Superman's writers:
Air Markers
Time Magazine
Monday, Aug. 24, 1936
Flying over unfamiliar U. S. terrain, many a private pilot without directional radio has been reassured, guided or saved from disaster by such terse signs as these, painted in black & orange in 12-ft. letters on the roofs of prominent barns, factories, warehouses, water tanks. Known as "air markers," they are normally visible from 4.000 ft., serve three purposes: 1) to identify the locale; 2) to give the north bearing; 3) to indicate, by a circle, arrow and numeral, the distance and direction of the nearest airport. By last week 58% of the U. S. was air-marked every 15 miles in every direction. Within a few months the entire nation will be thus tagged with a total of 16,000 air markers, almost none of which existed a year ago. Last week the current issue of the National Aeronautic Magazine revealed the name which deserved most credit for this important aeronautical safeguard: Mrs. Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie whom Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt once included in a list of the ten most useful women in the U. S.
Plump, brown-eyed, little Mrs. Omlie is 33. In 1918 she was a St. Paul high-school girl who spent every spare moment at the airport, eventually bought a Curtiss JN4D ("Jenny"). A onetime Army officer named Vernon C. Omlie taught her to fly it. Year later, after he had also taught her how to walk wings, make parachute jumps, hang by her teeth or swing from a trapeze on one plane to another in midair, they were married, went barnstorming as "The Flying Omlies." In 1927 Mrs. Omlie won her transport license, first ever granted to a U. S. woman. In 1929-30-31 she walked off with the chief feminine prizes at the National Air Races. Finally, in 1932, after a half-million miles in the air, two serious crackups, she quit active flying, took a desk job with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in Washington.
Last autumn she conceived the air-marking plan. Last week, as she received the first public acknowledgment of its success, she was too sad to appreciate it. Captain Omlie was killed fortnight ago as a passenger in the crash of the Chicago & Southern Air-Liner City of Memphis (TIME, Aug. 17).
As an assistant in the Works Progress Administration's $120,000,000 airport and airway development program, Mrs. Omlie hired a corps of famed female flyers,* sent them out to get local sponsors to suggest air markers, share their expense. So far, Mrs. Omlie's aides have spent $340,000. Expenditure of some $780,000 more has been authorized. Says Mrs. Omlie: "This is the first time that the Government has spent money in helping the private airplane owner."
*Louise Thaden, Helen MacCloskey, Nancy Harkness were the original three. When Pilot Harkness resigned to marry, Mrs. Omlie hired Helen Richey. Last week, another aide was appointed, Pilot Blanche Noyes.
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