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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0016.PDF
FLIGHT. JANUARY 6, 1938. TRANSATLANTIC The Work of the Weather Bureau in Ne Experiments : Accommodatio As the quarters at Botwood are only temporary it might be expected that they would be somewhat cramped. Actually seven people are normally working in the meteorological office shown above. On the right are the radio receiving hut and masts. ALTHOUGH the experimental transatlantic flightsof the flying boats Caledonia, Cambria andk Clipper HI have already been described in some detail, the amount of work done by the twenty- two men at the western sea base at Botwood, New- foundland, has not, so far, been fully realised. In this article the general organisation of the station will be described with the work of six of the twenty-two men. These six devoted their time to supplying meteorologi- cal information for the flights and constituted the staff of the Botwood office of the Meteorological Service of Canada. The accompanying map shows the relative positions of Botwood, Gander Lake (with the emergency landing area at Gleneagles), and the Newfoundland Airport, the con- struction of which has been progressing steadily. The latter played no part in the flights this summer, though meteorological data were being collected there continu- ously for future reference. The emergency base at Gleneagles consisted of a staff house of considerable beauty, built to accommodate the crews of any of the flying boats which were forced to land there, an emergency wireless station and suitable mooring buoys. The permanent staff consisted of a meteorological observer, stationed there to supply landing reports and to collect data for research purposes, and an operator in charge of the emergency wireless station. Only one land- ing was made at Gleneagles last summer and that by Cambria for test purposes. Botwood is a small straggling village on the west shore of the Bay of Exploits. At the northern end of the village is the sea base. The Bay there is almost entirely land- locked and some two miles wide at its narrowest point. The surrounding land rises slowly from sea level to a height of two to three hundred feet, while a small island (Killick) just off the shore gives splendid shelter for the By
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