Is Forecasting Necessary?

Extract

Twenty years ago meteorological forecasting was necessary and important to aviation. A number of factors made it so, as a short review of flying conditions in those days will show.

The weather was then the dominant factor in training. The wingloading of training aircraft was then so light that a sudden variation of only 10 m.p.h. in the wind made a practice landing hazardous. Both pupil and instructor therefore anxiously awaited the weather forecast. The wind forecast was equally important to the transport pilot of 1928 when a headwind of 60 m.p.h. was likely to prevent his reaching a destination only 200 miles away.