Goodhart borrowed a Wren's pocket mirror and lipstick, drew reference lines on the glass, and used a flashlight to represent the light source. He moved his head down the desk as though it were an approaching aircraft, checking whether the reflection guided his nose and chin to the same point each time. The improvised setup reduced a complicated carrier-landing problem to an experiment that could test the essential geometry immediately. It also kept the design centered on what a pilot would actually see while approaching the deck. Operational frustration, personal experience as a test pilot, and a simple physical model produced a life-saving system.
Notable Point · 1:52:33-1:54:42
Goodhart proved the landing aid with a mirror and lipstick
An improvised desktop experiment let Goodhart test the geometry of an optical approach path before committing the idea to a carrier installation.