A lost skill
Throwback Thursday!
In this photo from the mid-1950’s, a Woman in the Air Force or WAF plots air defense information on a huge Plexi-Glass surveillance board in the Continental Air Defense Command Combat Operations Center, located at Ent Air Force Base near downtown Colorado Springs.
She’s writing backwards so the battle staff seated in front of the board can read and analyze the information. All “tracks” of unknown aircraft approaching or near the United States were plotted on this board.
Ent closed in 1976 and is presently the US Olympic Training Center, located at Union Boulevard and Boulder Street in Colorado Springs.
The practice was not just a U.S. one. Here’s a vintage photo from Canada of a RCAF member in a NATO facility in Metz, France writing backwards on plotting board there.
Hattip, Peterson Air and Space Museum, Canadian Forces Museum of Aerospace Defence