An optical landing system (OLS) (nicknamed "meatball" or simply, "Ball") is used to give glidepath information to pilots in the terminal phase of landing on an aircraft carrier. From the beginning of aircraft landing on ships in the 1920s to the introduction of OLSs, pilots relied solely on their visual perception of the landing area and the aid of the Landing Signal Officer (LSO in the US Navy, or "batsman" in the Commonwealth navies). LSOs used colored flags, cloth paddles and lighted wands.
Read more about Optical Landing System: Components, Mirror Landing Aid, Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (FLOLS), Improved Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (IFLOLS), Manually Operated Visual Landing Aid System (MOVLAS), Pitching Deck, See Also
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“There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I need not say what match I would touch, what system endeavor to blow up; but as I love my life, I would side with the light, and let the dark earth roll from under me, calling my mother and my brother to follow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)