AH Challenge: Land Lighthouses still in use

[Tony Jones]

Can anyone come up with a circumstance in which land lighthouses are still in use by the present day?

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

A land lighthouse is simply a lighthouse constructed to aid navigation over land, rather than water. Historically, they were constructed in areas of flatland where the featureless landscape and prevailing weather conditions (e.g. winter fog) might cause travellers to become easily disorientated and lost. In such a landscape a high tower with a bright lantern could be visible for many kilometres.

...

Due to general improvements in transport and navigation throughout the 19th century, land lighthouses became almost totally obsolete as aids to travellers in remote places.

I was wondering if perhaps they could somehow come into use on trade routes across the Sahara Desert, or something like that...

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Tony Jones

Can anyone come up with a circumstance in which land lighthouses are still in use by the present day?



I was wondering if perhaps they could somehow come into use on trade routes across the Sahara Desert, or something like that...

Maybe in conjunction with semaphore/heliograph towers? I could see the two concepts being linked.

[The Dean]

Originally Posted by Thande

Maybe in conjunction with semaphore/heliograph towers? I could see the two concepts being linked.

Perhaps India, The Prairies or The Steppes.

[Tony Jones]

Originally Posted by The Dean

Perhaps India, The Prairies or The Steppes.

I quite like the idea of US cavalry forts in the Wild West with lighthouses to guide the pioneers across the prairie...

[von Adler]

Really, once you had a road (or just a track of two wheels) to follow and a roadsign when it parts, it is really not necessary (and for there to be a reason for a lighthouse, I am guessing there needs to be some traffic).

The only reason I can think of is caravans using hoovercraft or low-flying airplanes and zeppelins instead of carts and trucks for transportation. But that requires quite a bit of a change.

[The Dean]

Originally Posted by von Adler

Really, once you had a road (or just a track of two wheels) to follow and a roadsign when it parts, it is really not necessary (and for there to be a reason for a lighthouse, I am guessing there needs to be some traffic).

The only reason I can think of is caravans using hoovercraft or low-flying airplanes and zeppelins instead of carts and trucks for transportation. But that requires quite a bit of a change.

Anywhere with snow or dust-storms could use them in adverse weather conditions just as mariners do at sea.

[Tony Jones]

Originally Posted by The Dean

Anywhere with snow or dust-storms could use them in adverse weather conditions just as mariners do at sea.

Yes, that's why I was thinking of them on cross-Sahara trade routes.

[Berra]

Places where a lot of people travel (and some places where less people travel due to stupid politicians) gets roads. Land light houses is placed where less people travel which makes me ask if it is worth it.

[Justin Pickard]

What about places with poor visibility, where straying from the road would end up with one drowning in a swamp?

[ninebucks]

Originally Posted by Tony Jones

Yes, that's why I was thinking of them on cross-Sahara trade routes.

The Sahara gets very cold at night. Sub-zero temperatures are not uncommon. It is for this reason that caravans do not cross at night, because if they did, they would have to keep thick, heat-insulating coats with them during the day - and they would amount to nothing but dead weight.

[Dutchie]

Sea lighthouses weren't/aren't used to guide ships to a point, but away from unseen, underwater dangers. This isn't an issue on land, because on foot you could easily change direction if there were rocks suddenly in your path.

I have a hard time seeing a realistic use for these - apart from some futuristic sail-powered hover craft floating over grass seas on the steppes or plains. In the sahara, the land isn't so flat that you'd be able to see a lighthouse very far off (unless it's ridiculously tall) so there's limited use there.

[David S Poepoe]

To a degree we DO continue to use land lighthouses. Take a look at your local airport. It may be better to think what the airport looked like a few decades ago when they had rotating beacons/lights that helped pilots locate the runways. Early aviation borrowed alot of maritime phrases: airport, ship (a early reference to aircraft), etc. A modern vestige of the 'lighthouse' at airports is the control tower.

Early transcontinental aircraft, before pressurization, at low altitudes just followed roads and railways to their destinations.