Saturday, Oct 25, 2008 at 10:48
Heres something I cut and pasted about wartime.
Here it says each day they were collected and serviced.
Paraffin-burning ‘gooseneck’ flares were used to supplement the wartime shielded Drem runway lighting and large dustbin-like paraffin ‘money-buckets’ marked the runway threshold. Each day, these items had to be collected, serviced and then laid out and lit before night flying commenced. They were all extremely smelly and fearsome things, especially the ‘money-buckets’. These were large dustbinlike containers with a heavy lid. They were filled with paraffin and contained a large bundle of wick held in place by a ‘lobsterpot’ type cage.
To light these markers, the lids were first removed and placed inverted at each side of the runway threshold. A metal ‘shepherd’s crook’ was used to lift the paraffin-soaked wick from the bucket and place it on the upturned lid. A ‘portfire’ lit this device, which was soon a major conflagration! To extinguish the inferno, the ‘shepherd’s crook’ was again used to lift the blazing wick from the lid and place it back in the dustbin bucket full of paraffin, the lid then being placed back on top to extinguish the fiery mass.
Although these lighting aids may seem archaic today, the heat given out was such that they cleared any mist or fog around their sites and they were most successful. During the War, some fifteen Master Diversion airfields were fitted with petrol-burning “FIDO” pipes alongside the runway for a similar reason.
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