The Restored W.W. II Searchlight
If you grew up in Los
Angeles,
you have seen Carbon Arc Searchlights light up the sky for years
at
Hollywood Bowl Concerts, grand openings of supermarkets, movie
premiers,
and other functions. They worked very well for outdoor
advertising.
Few people realize that all
Carbon Arc Searchlights are all over 60 years old. Ten thousand
were
made, mostly ending up in Europe for WWII. One guess puts the surviving
number at about 2500 worldwide. They were built by the
General
Electric and Sperry Gyroscope for the U.S. Military as
Anti-Aircraft
Searchlight Units. Their original purpose was to aide World War II
anti-aircraft
gunnery crews in spotting enemy aircraft during night-time air
attacks.
These lights have not been built since 1944. They were no longer
useful to the military after the war having been replaced by the
invention
of radar. As far as I know, my light is the only fully restored
light
in the country that will work with a Distant Electronic Control unit as
it was designed to do during the war.
In October of 2001, this
light was brought to Santa Clarita. The goal was to restore this light
to it's full W.W. II operating condition and appearance. All the
original parts and I.D. tags were to be on this machine. Over the
next 6 months, most of the light was taken apart for painting,
and
located many of the parts that were missing. Parts from hubcaps to
dynamotors
came from all across the country as far away as New York.
After months of hard work, the
light looks like it came off the showroom floor, and performs to
factory
specifications. The light is as beautiful to see in the daytime
as
at night.
Click HERE
to rent our searchlight!
Click
HERE to see some of the steps it took to restore this light!