Transport: Snow Static Beaten

A major factor in last winter’s airplane crashes was radio failure due to snow static. United Air Lines therefore set aside a Boeing laden with instruments and experts which flew almost daily over the mountainous Northwest—an ideal snow-static laboratory. Snow static was supposed to be caused by impact on the antenna of droplets containing tiny electric charges. United last week announced that it is caused by discharge from trailing edges of electricity gathered while flying through heavily charged clouds. When sufficiently severe, snow static affected the shielded loop, heretofore the best-known remedy (TIME, Jan. 25), as much as any antenna. The remedy worked out by United is to trail from the tail 50-, ft. of insulated wire, an electric suppressor and 50 ft. more of naked wire. The electricity flows off the naked wire, making static so remote from the antenna at the plane’s nose that radio reception is not impaired.