2017-06-19

[public] 468K views, 17.9K likes, 75.0 dislikes audio only

Tom Scott

Landing on a runway surrounded by fire might not sound like a good idea, but it's better than trying to land without modern instruments in thick fog. This was FIDO: "Fog, Intensive, Dispersal Of" (originally "Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operations"), the Royal Air Force's strange but brilliant scheme that saved thousands of air crew lives.

Unlike a lot of World War 2 experiments, this one not only worked, but was deployed around the country. It would have been used in peacetime, too, except for one rather big problem: petrol's really expensive.

SOURCES:

The War Illustrated, Volume 9, No. 210, Page 140: https://web.archive.org/web/20160304162129/http://www.thewarillustrated.info/210/now-it-can-be-told-operation-fido-beating-airfield-fog.asp

The report of FIDO causing a thunderstorm is questionable (hence phrasing it as "a report"), but it's on page 113 of the Daily Telegraph Book of the Weather here: https://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=0826471250

The oil price calculation's my own work, based on the prices as I recorded this!

Thanks to Tomek on camera: https://youtube.com/tomek

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