The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-05-04
Wind, Weather and The
 Transatlantic Flight
By wALDEmAR KAENpFFERr

of the skies will ignore the atmosphere altogether But they will not be inti1ni- dated by fog or storm, as are the British liners now cha1ng in Newfoundland. The machines of the future will be powerful enough to brave any storm. Their cap talns Will be such expert lmeteorclogists that they will take advantage of currents or which our pilots know nothing
 The delays that the Englishmen have had to endure have been the delays of Ignorance. Practically nothing is known or the air conditions over the Atlantic confesSOn which the scientific meteorol- oSlst bushes to make and which can ne excused only because of the extraordinary shortsightedness of the great maritime nations that must finance the tedious and expensive explorations of the oceanic ar The men who are about to brave the unknown perils of the atmosphere in an effort to cross the Atlantic must per- force apply the knowledge of the weather that has been gained by means of kites and balloons which have been sent up from land weather -observatories and which have been freighted with wonder 1ully ingenious instruments that auto- matically write down with pen and ins the temperature of the air, the strength Of the wind the humidity, the baromerric pressure-all the facts that the meteor ologists would gather if he could elevate himself to height of 10 15 or 20 miles
 most ingenious application of such painfully acquired land knowledge to the atmosphere conditions over the sea, has been made by Mir. Willis Ray Gregg. or the United States Weather bureau be- fore the Philosophical Society of Wash ington. Rest assured that the men who are to fly the American N C. planes across the ocean have studied his findings until they know them by note
 And what does MT. Gregg conclude? That in all the year only on 127 days are the atmospheric conditions favorable for a flight from Newfoundland to Ireland with the machines Of today. Still worse are the prospects of success If you fly in the opposite direction from Ireland to Newfoundland. Then you have only IT days in the year on which the flying will be good. It is easy to see why most Of the transatlantic pilots will start from America rather than from Europe and why the chances of flying back after Ireland has been reached are obviously slim.
 It is the wind, the prevailing westerly wind. that plays such havoc with trans atlantic ambitions. The air-lner of the future, and by that I mean a heavier thanair craft, must be very much swifter, very much more powerful ma chine than the bunny bomb -droppers of the. British now in Newfoundland or the clumsy seaplanes of our navy if we are to vault into the air on a voyage to Flu rope with never thought for the wind. It must be a machine that will make 2oD miles an hour-not the 80 or 20 at which our seapanes are capable of travelling. In F hours at the most it will cover the distance from Newfoundland to Ireland. At present an aviator must know what changes in the wind are likely to occur during the latter part of his voyage, which means that he must know 24 hours in advance what the weather is to be in Europe. While the aviator of today is making up his mind whether or not he will risk a voyage (witness the anxiety of the fliers now in Newfoundland 9 D-mile-an-hour machine would hare reached the goal.