The Aviator and the Weather Bureau

Army Airplane Gliding to North Island over U. S. Cruiser “San Diego”
BY FORD A. CARPENTER, LL.D. Meteorologist
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND CHARTS BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS
PUBLISHED BY THE SAN DIEGO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 1917
Published by permission Dated August 25, 1916 Second edition, 5,000 copies
J. Horace McFarland Company Mt. Pleasant Press Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Much of the material in the following pages was obtained by the writer while detailed as Lecturer in Meteorology to the Signal Corps, War Department Aviation School at San Diego, in 1915–1916, also when detailed in the same official capacity to the U. S. Army Military Training Encampment, Monterey, 1916; and at the summer sessions of the University of California during 1914–1916.
Los Angeles, Cal., February, 1917.
To J. S. A.
Character of Instruction. —Officers from all branches of the army volunteer for this service. The qualifications of an aviator are caution, judgment, and technical skill. Deficiencies in caution and judgment being temperamental are rarely remedied, while technical skill is largely a matter of acquirement. Less than ninety days are allowed for qualification as a junior aviator, and if in that period the officer’s deficiencies are found to be inherent, he returns to his company.
Active Work of the Weather Bureau. —During the score of years that the writer has been in charge of the San Diego and Los Angeles stations of the Weather Bureau, interest in flying has been cumulative. Efforts have been made to furnish aviators with available data so that at the present time a day seldom passes without conference With officials or students of Government or private flying schools in this vicinity.
Lectures on Meteorology as Applied to Aviation. —Through the War Department, October, 1915, on request of the commanding officer of the Signal Corps aviation school, at San Diego, the writer was directed by the Chief of the Weather Bureau to deliver two lectures of which the following are outlines: