being made to improve instruments for blind flying, and a system of weather reporting and forecasting has been developed to help meet flyers’ needs.
For instance, at stated intervals every hour the United States Weather Bureau gives a report of conditions to the various localities along the established airways. Any airport can be equipped with a teletype to get this service.
Not only is weather information available by teletype but it is broadcast every hour, as well. Thus, any pilot in the air who has proper radio equipment can tune in on a specified wave length and learn exactly what conditions prevail in his territory. What he hears aloft can be listened to on the ground, of course. These broadcasts, by the way, are given out verbally and not in code. At many fields they are amplified with loud speakers so that they are easily heard by everyone concerned.
In addition to the weather bureau service, whose distribution for the airways is handled by the Department of Commerce, several of the large air transport companies have supplementary service of their own. Their pilots in the air are in constant touch with their control stations and with other pilots, while special reports are received at intervals from observers at key positions adjacent to the route.
