AVIATION IN AMERICA.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17242, 29 October 1927, Page 4

AVIATION IN AMERICA.

lIVFPROVED forecasts sought. Harry F. Guggenheim, President T. O Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, speaking of the recent organisation by the kund of a committee to study aeronautical meteorology, said it was hoped to make commercial aviation independent of atmospheric conditions, hut until that time arrived it would be necessary to better weather forecasting, says an American paper. “For, the present the status of transportation by air will remain in many respects more comparable to that in the age of sails than to that in the age of steam,” he said.

Tho making of reliable airway forecasts is still far from perfect. With the present network of Weather Bureau stations the five district forecast centres in the United States must necessarily restrict themselves to general forecasts, leaving tho local conditions to be taken care of by the meteorologists at the flying fields. The forecasting or even accurate description of local phenomena requires a great deal of study and research in local meteorology.” Mr Guggenheim said the greatest hazards to fliers were fog, thunderstorms and low clouds, especially in mountain regions. The chief problem facing the aeronautical meteorologist, he said, .was to determine under what general conditions such local disturbances occurred.