STUDY OF WEATHER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22901, 2 December 1937, Page 18

STUDY OF WEATHER

MOBE EXACT SCIENCE THE NEEDS OF AVIATION ENGLISH EXPERT'S ADDRESS [BT TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON, Wednesday The head of the overseas division of the London Meteorological Office, Mr. F. Entwistle, who is attending the conference of meteorologists lit piesent being held at Wellington, addressed members of the Wellington Itotuij Club on "Meteorology and Aviation." Mr. Entwistle said it was no longer sufficient for someone to announce. "Fine, perhaps; rain in places." With the development of aviation and the use of gag the Army authorities wanted much moro precise information about the weather, and from then on meteorology began to become an exact science. Aviators wished to know how many feet the base of the clouds was from the earth, the thickness of the cloud layers, and the character of the clouds —'whether they were of the type that caused bumps or those that made for comfortable flying conditions. At oiio time fliers usually favoured flying under the clouds, preferably with some well-known landmark in sight, but to-day the clouds did not matter. Aeroplanes penetrated into them, even when they were as low as 150 feet above the* ground at Croj-don, making at once for the predetermined level, and then off they went to Paris, Brussels, or Amsterdam without any loss of time. This they were able to do because of the development of wirele.ss directional apparatus. Then it was also necessary to supply the pilots with information as to the height at which ice was likely to form on an aeroplane nnd to what degree, as this was an important factor in winter flying in Europe. Meteorological services were now being called upon to play an important part in the transocean services, and had been an essential aid to flight and navigation in the experiments which had been carried out by Imperial Airways in co-operation with Pan American Airways. At first it was considered by some that it would be impossible to maintain anything like a regular service across the North Atlantic, but in the course of the experiments it had been found that none of the machines was ever more than half an hour out.