The Fun of It/Chapter 9
“DOC” KIMBALL
The man upon whom every house-party hostess depends, the man whose advice is sought by promoters of prize-fights and Salvation Army picnics and upon whose words farmers wait eagerly, their thoughts on corn and wheat, is the weather man. And there is a special guiding genius upon whose accurate information the lives of flyers often depend. It is as important to know what he says, as to know that a motor isn’t missing.
The guide, meteorological philosopher and friend of all flyers—the man who has had his hand in all the major flights originating in this country—does not fly himself.
But it is he who says “Go” to those who do.
“What’s the weather? What does Dr. Kimball say?”
That double-barreled question was asked countless times during the thirteen weary days at Trepassey about which I have told you, as we poised on the verge of the transatlantic flight.
Returning to New York afterward, I met the “weather man” on whom we had so depended. I found him a middle aged person with a mop of grey hair topping a broad brow. He had friendly eyes, a thoughtful smile and a low, soft, southern drawling voice. The first thing he wanted to know was about the meteorological conditions met with on the flight.
“When you have time—when you get through with this,” he said, indicating the crowd, “please tell me some day exactly what you encountered on the flight. After all, we’re able really to find out so little about over-ocean weather—and evidently what we predicted didn’t pan out.”
One day I visited Dr. Kimball at the Weather Bureau perched up at the top of the Whitehall Building in lower New York City. It was mid morning. Dr. Kimball stood at a high desk, and as we talked, the periodic delivery of telegraph flimsies interrupted our conversation. These messages contained cabalistic figures from Manitoba, Kansas or Cuba, recording conditions at that particular point—the barometric pressure, wind direction and velocity, visibility and temperature, and whether rain, snow, fog or sunshine prevailed.
On the desk before him lay an outline map of the United States and the Atlantic. As the information trickled in. Dr. Kimball penciled swirling lines across it. In final form each swirl outlined specific pressure areas. Little pools and wide eddies of these lines, called isobars, gradually covered the paper, while on a companion map developed another picture puzzle of isotherms, lines designating temperatures.
Dr. Kimball and I talked of the interesting phenomena of weather movement—for it is the calculation of movement which is the basis of meteorological prediction. The “highs” and “lows” (that is, fair weather and storm centers) are seldom static
Looking Down on an Aircraft Carrier
Where the Wrights First Flew—Orville Wright, Senator Hiram Bingham and A. E. at Kittyhawk, N. C.
for long. Almost universally they move from west to east in the United States, just as prevailing winds on this hemisphere and over the Atlantic are westerly, primarily controlled by the revolution of the earth itself.
Each storm center. Dr. Kimball explained, revolves in a counter clockwise direction, when it is north of the equator.
“Have you ever noticed,” he asked, “how water draining from a basin always swirls opposite the hands of a clock?”
“We’re usually through with the weather map about noon,” Dr. Kimball went on. “Generally these reports come in from one hundred and fifty stations in the United States. Then there are thirty or more from Canada, and others from Bermuda, and from several points in the arctic, including Greenland. In the summer we get regular reports from the ice patrol up in the Grand Banks region. And, of course, each morning the data come from Great Britain covering the eastern Atlantic and Europe.”
It takes about four hours to compile and digest all this far-flung information. Once in, and the weather map made, the bureau is ready to issue its predictions. That “Fair and Warmer” prophecy you read in the paper isn’t at all the guesswork of some individual optimist; it’s the product of the labor of a hundred men or more, and its compilation has cost thousands of dollars.
The ground hog and the “nature signs” of the amateur weather prophet are losing out in the demand for accurate information. Modern economics can’t depend on them. Long flights and important business ventures which need fair weather must have better foundation than:
Mackerel in the sky,
Three days dry.
“How many ships report ocean weather information?” I asked.
“Not nearly so many as we need,” Dr. Kimball sighed. “We haven’t adequate appropriation yet for all the service we’d like, but it’s much better than it used to be. The storms over the North Atlantic are larger than any known on land, extending sometimes in one vast disturbance from Newfound land to the British Isles. That is the extent—how high they are, we do not know.
“During the hurricane season a hundred or more ships in West Indian waters report. If vessels in the North sent regular data, our over-ocean weather maps should be pretty efficient. That’s important for maritime commerce, and of course essential in the development of transatlantic flying. Also such information would help us tremendously in forecasting weather conditions on shore, both for our own continent and for Europe.”
Dr. Kimball, like so many others, believes that regular transatlantic air service, whether by dirigibles or airplanes, is inevitable—and near. As a matter of fact, one of the barriers to it today is lack of complete weather information. Not that airplanes are frail craft and can’t ride out a storm, but that they are so peculiarly competent to take advantage of meteorological opportunities and avoid hazards.
A ship has to plow on its course, whatever the storm conditions. Aircraft may sometimes dodge a storm or adverse wind by flying at an altitude at which conditions are favorable. For instance, almost always if a high enough altitude is attained, the wind is westerly in our latitude, whatever its direction on the ground.
In his book “Skyward,” Commander Byrd says: “I now think that the America (his transatlantic Fokker monoplane) could conquer almost any storms that might be met in crossing the Atlantic. The only ocean condition that need be serious for the planes of the future is the hurricane, which might exhaust the fuel supply.”
He speaks of the planes of today. Large, they are, many of them weighing tons. What the size and weight and strength of the aircraft of tomorrow will be, is guesswork.
Most experienced pilots agree with him. And Byrd, remember, is speaking after an Atlantic crossing. Before he flew, the Weather Bureau gave him the best information possible. He required a westerly wind to push him toward his goal and thus augment his fuel supply. Even with the sketchy data available, he got what was promised him—though there were unexpected conditions thrown in, as later happened in Chamberlin’s great flight to Germany, and with our own Friendship Flight.
The time is at hand when meteorological experts will be able to hand a pilot a weather map of the Atlantic upon which the locations of barometric highs and lows will be plotted exactly, both for the moment and say, twelve hours thence. Already the Hydrographic Office issues monthly charts of the upper air, with a notice in the corner reading,
“Recommended Transatlantic Airplane Route: In the selection of the routes shown on the charts, the northernmost route which appears practicable in view of distances, temperatures, favorability of wind, and general weather information, gleaned from analyses of recent transoceanic flights and the present development of aviation, the route from the Azores to Plymouth, England, is the route recommended for the month.”
In Dr. Kimball’s office in New York, the inquiries concerning weather run a wide gamut, those directly concerning aviation being yet in the minority.
“I am trying to get some coal across the river, and the ice keeps piling up against the docks. Can you tell me when the wind will change so I can get the shipment out?”
“Isn’t the U. S. A. going to have any snow this year? I can’t go to Canada every time I want to ski.”
“Can you tell me, please, whether it’s going to rain this afternoon? I want to know about wear ing rubbers.”
Fifteen hundred times a day over the phone come similar questions, some comic, some—or what lies behind them—tragic. Even though there are fewer of them, those concerning flying weather come frequently enough. However, with the establishment of weather bureaus on the airways, most of the spot news type of inquiry go directly to the airport offices.
Dr. Kimball takes transatlantic flights seriously. During the preparations for several of the hops, I know he stayed up night after night, coordinating the data that came in, and giving to the fliers and their associates the best he could. I really think that he did not go to bed at all during the thirteen days when the Friendship remained at Trepassey.
When George Haldeman and Ruth Elder started out. Dr. Kimball had told them they would meet a storm near the Azores. They took the chance of running through it, however, rather than wait until a coming storm, then recorded in the Middle West, should sweep eastward across the country and make the fields here at New York impossible for a take off. With the heavy load of gasoline, the wheels of the plane would have bogged down on a rainsoaked runway.
That particular hazard is eliminated, as far as New York is concerned now, for an airport with 3000 feet runways which don’t become soft in rain, has since been finished.
Weather, in Dr. Kimball’s belief, also figured in the loss of Hinchcliffe, who started to fly the Atlantic from east to west. He put to sea with favorable northeast winds, but subsequently, it became evident later, encountered areas of falling barometer in mid-Atlantic, with freezing temperature that may well have weighted his plane with ice.
Dr. Kimball told me, too, what happened when Admiral Byrd started for France. At Cape Race, the easternmost point of Newfoundland, a barometer recorded fair weather. But hourly reports from a vessel heading westward on the steamer lane recorded a steadily falling barometer. Apparently a storm lay across its course, which was also Byrd’s.
At midnight just off Cape Race, the final message came from the steamer. The reading of its barometer was far lower than that of the barometer ashore. At once the meteorologist, studying all the available data in his New York office, realized that the ship’s barometer was inaccurate—that actually there was no storm on the first leg of the journey.
“The start of that Byrd flight was the most dramatic of all,” Dr. Kimball told me. “When I told him of the adverse prospects for the next day, he went to sleep. He was staying with a friend on Long Island, not far from Roosevelt Field. When at midnight we ran down this mistake of barometric readings, the whole map changed.
“I phoned Byrd, and told him it looked pretty hopeful for the following winds he needed. Then I worked out the weather map as quickly as I could and drove out to him. We got there about two o’clock and went over the situation.
1911—A Burgess-Wright Biplane Lands and Takes Off
1931—A Pitcairn Autogiro Lands and Takes Off
“‘We’ll go,’ said Byrd.
“The America’s crew joined the Commander at Roosevelt Field, where the ship was already warming up at the top of the incline they had built to get a running start. Just as dawn broke through low clouds, it started to rain.
“‘Is this rain serious?’ Byrd asked me.
“I told him the data showed at worst a light local shower, and advised that he go ahead. He went. And, as you know, the heavily loaded America took off just before they reached the end of the runway.”
So the start of Admiral Byrd’s great flight—“the prettiest piece of navigation you could imagine,” Dr. Kimball calls it—hinged entirely on weather data. I am sure that the weather man who started him on his way slept not at all until Byrd was safely in France.
To show how much he is appreciated, “Doc” Kimball was asked to be a Guest of Honor at a dinner given by those who had participated in all heavier than air transatlantic flights. Of course, not all could come, but among those who did, were Chamberlin, Balchen, Byrd, Lindbergh, Yancy, Assolant (who came from France to be present) and Courtney. Ruth Elder and I were the women included among these flying folk.
In winter crossings, many a ship is delayed by weather. Even with railroads, periodically snowslides or washouts hold the whip hand. On country roads, mud and snow may upset the best made automobile plans, and every city dweller knows the traffic congestion that follows a swift and heavy snowstorm. Weather again!
Yes, the state of weather has a hand in making or marring many human activities, ranging from crop raising to transportation.
The establishment of weather bureaus began with the “Crimean Storm” of 1854, Sweeping across the Black Sea, it sank many ships at Balaklava, which carried food and necessities for the besiegers of Sebastopol, during the bitter winter.
The loss of the French Warship Henry IV in this disaster led the astronomer Leverrier, Director of the National Observatory at Paris, to trace the course of the storm across Europe from west to east The outcome of this study was the establishment by the French Government of the first system of weather reporting. From it ultimately developed the service of storm warning and weather forecasting that now exists throughout the world.
Since then, the science of applied meteorology has steadily progressed—with aviation presenting its newest problem. In this clearly developing period it seems to me women might well be interest ing themselves in becoming meteorologists, work interesting in itself and an opportunity to become acquainted with aviation. So far as I can find out, there are very very few who are preparing to do so.
“Is there any reason why women cannot be ‘weather men’?” I asked the head of one of the large weather bureau offices not long ago.
“Well, no,” he said, “except that they would have to go out in bad weather sometimes and climb ladders to collect data and make observations.”
Had I not known about civil service examinations, I might have received the impression that wearing overalls well was a requirement for women in meteorology. However, to be sure that entrance opportunities were about the same for both sexes I asked about examinations.
“Yes. Candidates can be either men or women. Usually the head of a department has the privilege of choosing which one he prefers when passing grades are about the same.”
“Are there any women at all in the Weather Bureau?” was my next question.
“A few—mostly at Washington, D. C. Their positions are classified as stenographic and clerical though most of those in the latter are really minor observers. Of course, there are many more in the first division.”
While most Weather Bureau women may be in Washington, I know of one observer who is stationed on a regular airway, or, rather, an airway runs by the place she lives.
Just where the Hudson narrows at Peekskill, there stands St. Mary’s Academy. Fog often lingers longest in that region and forms more quickly. Pilots on the New York-Albany run know if they can get past there, they can usually reach either terminal. Sister Mary Anthony at stated intervals sends in a full meteorological report, so that they may know the weather at that important point.