The history and development of mechanical flight may be confined almost entirely to the present century. In the last century some success had been achieved in gliding flight, model aeroplanes had been made and flown, and at least two man-carrying aeroplanes had actually left the groundj but it was not until the year 1903 that the Wright Bros., having ended a painstaking research in gliding flight, earned for themselves the honour of being the first men to fly.

Directly the success of the Wright Bros, became known, or rather when people began to believe that what the Wright Bros, claimed was actually true, the development of flying became rapid in the extreme. To-day one is tempted to wonder why it was that it had taken man so many centuries of civilisation to do what now seems to most of us rather an ordinary thing.

I have been asked by your Council to address you to-night on one or more of the many points where aviation and meteorology come into contact. I cannot lay claim to much knowledge of aviation and my excuse must be the rapid increase of such knowledge during the last few years and the fact that under our present conditions much of it must be of a confidential nature; but the importance of meteorological conditions for the practical business of flying is so obvious and so great that I think it may be of use and interest to point out the effect that the more prominent meteorological phenomena have upon aviation.