Jet stream

by Sanjit sen (Editor)

The jet stream is a river of wind
that blows horizontally through the
upper layers of the troposphere,
generally from west to east, at an
altitude of 20,000 - 50,000 feet
(6,100 - 9,144 meters), or about 7
miles (11 kilometers) up.

Jet streams were
discovered in the
1920s by
meteorologist
Wasburo Ooishi,
who was using
weather balloons
for his study of
high elevation
wind patterns
over Japan. In
1939, German
meteorologist H.
Seilkopf was the
first to use the
term "jet stream"
in a published
scientific paper.
However, it wasn't
until World War
II, when the
Japanese used
the jet stream for
fire balloon
attacks on the
American
mainland, that
the upper-level
winds gained
public
recognition. Wiley
Post, an American
aviation pioneer,
is credited with
being the first
person to fly
within a jet
stream. He and
other WWII
military pilots
flying Boeing B-29
Superfortress
bombers found
the jet stream
made high
altitude flights
difficult.

62 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 1, 2014