THE CONTROL TOWER is a familiar icon at airports around the world, yet the structure and technology we know today are the result of long years of experimentation. In the early 1900s there was little need for organization or control with so few aircraft in the air, but World War Ⅰ introduced new needs. On September 15, 1918, Lt. Col. Harold Hartney, commander of the U.S. Army Air Service First Pursuit Group, built a scaffolding platform on top of the command hut at his airfield near Rembercourt, France. The hastily built structure was intended to use light signals to communicate with the observation balloon-busting team Frank Luke Jr. and Joseph Wehner on a night mission. The airfield was to be kept dark to avoid enemy detection, and on their return the pilots were to signal a code to the tower, who would signal back and give the order to uncover the bonfires lining the runway, giving the pilots a one-minute window for landing. Hartney claimed the event as the first use of a control tower for night flying.
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