Weekly news bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 8, October 27, 1938

              TOWARD
20,000,000 PASSENGER MILES À
San Francisco October 27, 1
HEART OF A CLOUD
Aeronautics, as a distinctly 20th Century science, has come, with reasonable completeness, into the comprehension of the layman. Some misconceptions, however, born of ignorance and nurtured by misunderstanding, continue to survive and seem likely to do so for a long time. Chief among these is that there is such a thing as holes in the atmosphere popularly referred to as "air pockets..”
From the time of the earliest experiments with heavier-than-air flying craft, flyers have known that there exists, as an atmospheric condition, rough air just as there exists the oceanic condition known as a rough sea. One of the causes for this, long recognized, were upward draughts of warm air, and down draughts of cold air. Unlike a rough sea, with white caps or towering ’waves, the phenomenon of rough air is naturally completely invisible to the human eye. In overland flying certain specific changes in the contour of the earth’s surface, taken in conjunction with special meteorological conditions, can be expected to produce a rough flight and preparations can be made in certain cases to anticipate this situation. Although over-ocean flying in large, modern transoceanic passenger planes is far smoother as a rule than overland flying, rough air is not unknown over the ocean.
It has long been a considerable mystery to trans-ceanic pilots as to why, without any quick changes in the ontour of the surface beneath, namely the sea, roughness hould suddenly and unexpectedly be encountered in mid-ocean flight officer, standing ?vTatch on the bridge of the CHINA LIPPER on a recent trans-Pacific clipper crossing, reports possible solution of this aeronautical mystery. The secre e believes, may be found in the heart of a cloud. Plans re being made by Pan American Airways to conduct further re earches into this mystery along the lines indicated by the light officer's discovery.
WEEKLY N