LIVERMORE

HERITAGE

GUILD

November 2000 Vol. XXX No. 2

 

CALENDAR

Thursday, November 9 @ 7:00 p.m.

LHG Meeting, Carnegie Bidg.

 

Sunday, December 3

Holiday Expressions & Calendar Madness

LAA Gallery & Livermore Heritage Guild

12-3 p.m. @ Carnegie Bidg., 3rd and J Streets

Fine arts and crafts, unique gifts, Heritage Guild 2001 calendar

 

Sunday, December 10, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Ravenswood Victorian-era Christmas party

Decorations, entertainment, horse and carriage rides, handicraft area, St. Nicholas, food and beverages, gift shop will be open.

2647 Arroyo Rd., Livermore

Regular tours second Sunday of each month.
Info: 443-0238

 

Excerpted from Livermore Herald, May 18,1928

 

Livermore Airport Weather Station
Signal System Will Give Data to Pilots

The Livermore airport took on added importance when an announcement was made Tuesday that it is one of the most important stations on the Oakland-Los Angeles air route concerned with the new weather observation plan which is soon to be put into effect. Livermore's strategic location as the last emergency landing field before reaching the Oakland airport or Mills Field in San Francisco, gives it an important place in the system.

Service Established

The weather observation service is being put into operation by the U. S. Department of Commerce, which has established an air ways division of the U.S. Weather Bureau, with western headquarters in San Francisco. D.W. Little, meteorologist of the department, has arrived in San Francisco to organize the service, which will include thirty-five stations between San Diego and Seattle at which weather data will be collected for the information of pilots.

 

Livermore Station Important

At Livermore will be what is known as a "panel station". Aviators passing over these stations can read, by means of a code signal system on the ground, the latest weather data. A pilot flying over Livermore en route to the bay city terminals can learn at a glance whether there is any fog at Mills Field, Crissy Field, Concord or Oakland airport. Should he deem conditions in the bay city adverse to permit landing, he can stop in Livermore. A similar station will be located at Redding.

 

At Medford and Bakersfield it is planned to have "flag stops" where aviators can be signaled to come down if conditions over the mountain range are dangerous. Mail planes will push through regardless of weather, but passenger-carrying planes will be instructed to stop before crossing the ranges in bad weather.

 

The information these local observers furnish will be gathered at a few "control stations" and in turn sent to San Francisco for study and for working into forecasts. At present weather forecasts for air pilots will be furnished in accordance with their flying schedules, but later on will be made every three hours, day and night, with special information in case unforeseen storms or emergencies arise.

"The establishment of this service", Little explains, "will be of great benefit to Pacific Coast airways which are Considered among the most hazardous in America. This is due to the high mountain ranges being close to the ocean.

Ranges Present Hazards
"Traveling between Los Angeles and Seattle a flyer has to go 'over the Alps' four times. The lowest of these four ranges is twice as high as the highest range between Chicago and New York. Of course, there are higher ranges in the Rockies, but flying conditions there are much better than on the Coast.

Between Mount Shasta and Redding, a distance of seventy-five miles, there is only one landing field and that none too good. The country is so rugged that there is no place for a landing field, Recently one of the aviators asked that two tall trees be cut down, as he Could hardly brush by flying between them up a canyon.

"Through such a country as this it is necessary for pilots to have up to the minute weather data, and the government will try to furnish it. Great care will betaken in selecting weather observers because on their reports may depend the lives of the pilots."

1999 .. Jan 00 .. Feb 00 .. Mar 00 .. Apr 00 .. May 00 .. Jun 00 .. Jul 00 .. Aug 00 .. Sep 00 .. Oct 00 .. Nov 00 .. Dec 00 .. 2001 .. The Guild .. Home