WEATHER FACTOR IN PACIFIC FLIGHTS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 55, 27 November 1937, Page 6

WEATHER FACTOR IN PACIFIC FLIGHTS

Our Own Correspondent.)

Organised Service Essentia Preliminary CO-ORDINATED EFFORTS

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AUCKLAND, Last Night. A thoroughly organised and highly eo-ordinated meteorological service covering the south-west Paeific is regarded as an essential preliminary to any attempt to establish regular air servicds to New Zealand by Major E. H. Bowie, officer in charge of the United Statea Weather Bureau at Sau Erancisco, who arrived in Auckland by the Monterey. He is visiting the Dominion to represent the United States at the meteorological conference to be held in Wellington from November 29 until December 4. In stressing the importanee of tbe projected deliberations, Major Bowio said that the conference, which had been calied by Dr. Kidson, Director o£ Meteorological Services in New Zealand was a sub-commission of the inter= national meteorological organisation. Eepresentatives would be present from the weather bureau operating iu the area, aud it was hoped to fix standard hours of observation, the nature ot data to be obtained, the code most suitable for its transmission, and the methods of dissemination of knowledge ov means of radio. "I really thmk that regular flying over the route between San Prancisco and Auckland should be deferred until the: meteorological service is thoroughly organised," Major Bowie said. "At the present stage, it ■ would be very much like trying to drive an automobile over a track that was meant for a logger— it cannot be done with the maximum of safety. In the United States every ^ safeg'uard is taken before experimental flights are completed, and on .the run -between San Francisco and Manila the Pan-American Airway service was in operation for a year before passengers .were carried."

. Major Bowie referred. to the success of the co-ordiuated meteorological work carried on by : the United States aud Canada. Siuce 1873 it had been eo'nducted most amicably and with distinct suOcess, he said, although no memorandum or understanding* had ever been drawn up between the two countries. In the South-West Paeifie, however, each State was working independently of the other, and it was to standardise and combine the efforts of the various bureaux that the conference had been ealled in Wellington.