 Chapter 9 of The Hurricane Hunters by Ivan Ray Tannihill. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 9 Wings Against the Whirling Blasts. Said the black-browed hurricane, brooding down the Spanish main, shall I see my forces zounds measured in square inches, pounds, with detectives at my back when I double on my track, all my secrets, paths made clear, published to a hemisphere, shall I? Blow me if I do, Bret Hart. After Joe Duckworth flew into the center of the hurricane near Galveston on July 27, 1943, there was much excitement about the remarkable fact that he had experienced no very dangerous weather or damage to his plane on the trip. But the experts realized that hunting hurricanes as a regular business would be different. Men who had flown the weather in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the tropics and subtropics, and those who had just thought about it, had visions of underlating seas stirred by soft tropical breezes, white clouds piled in neat balls on the horizon, blue water, blue sky, and lush palm-covered coasts and islands. And yet they knew that nowhere is the slight trickery of wind and storm more dangerous. Suddenly and with no apparent reason, the soft breezes turn into quick little gusts and wrap themselves around his center with grey clouds spreading and rain coming in brief squalls. The whirl spreads, gathering other winds into his orbit, and hard rain begins. Soon there are violent gales, and the power of the storm is apparent in the roaring of the wind and sea. And so it is easy to think of a plane in a hurricane as being like an oak leaf in a thunderstorm, except that the leaf is bigger in proportion, but lacks the skillful handling of a youthful crew, alert, fearful, and resourceful, straining desperately to keep it from rocketing steeply into the wind-torn sea below. For these reasons, the men who ventured in 1943 to probe tropical storms by air were exceedingly cautious about it. They went into it at a high level, usually as far up as the plane would go, and came down by easy stages in the column center, if possible, ready to turn around and dash for land the moment anything went wrong. The next after Duckworth and his associates, to look into a hurricane, was Captain G. H. McDougall of the Army Air Forces. The second fully developed storm of 1943 came from far out in the open Atlantic and passed east of the windward islands on a north-northwest course towards Bermuda. McDougall wanted to have a first-hand view of its insides. Waves in the Atlantic were reporting extremely high winds and waves fifty to sixty feet high and five hundred to six hundred feet in length. McDougall went to see Colonel Allen, who said he was ready to pilot the plane, so the two took off from Antigua on August 20. According to the report by McDougall, they came in at a very high level and began to explore the outer circulation of the storm. He said, we ran into rain falling from overcast. There were broken cumulus and stratus clouds below us. As the sun became more and more blotted out, we seemed to be heading into a bluish twilight. In spite of the low visibility due both to rain and moderate haze, it was impossible to make out the ocean through the wind torn stratus below, and while we were yet to see the teeth of the storm, the snarl was already too evident. A surface wind of forty to fifty miles per hour from the southwest was probably a good estimate in this part of the storm. Colonel Allen now began to let the plane down and we stopped taking oxygen. At the same time, the wheels were let down to minimize the turbulence and the plane leveled off at an elevation of one thousand feet, which was below the stratus. For those of us who had spent enough time in the Caribbean to be familiar with the magnitude of the waves usually encountered, it was hard to believe what we saw below. The seas were tremendous and the crests were being blown off in long swirls by a wind that must easily have exceeded seventy miles per hour. The long parallel streaks of foam streaming from one wave to another made it evident from which direction the wind was blowing. About a month later, a tropical storm formed in the western gulf of Mexico, not far from Barra Cruz. Shortly afterward it moved toward the Texas coast, increasing rapidly in force, and there was general alarm. People began to abandon the beaches and to protect their property in the coastal towns. At this time there was a young officer, Lieutenant Paul Eckern, at Tinker Airfield near Oklahoma City, who was anxious to see the inside of one of these big storms. This one looked like his last chance for 1943, and he began talking it up. He found Sergeant Jack Hoonigans, who was ready to go, and they looked for a plane and pilot. Time went by, but the hurricane center slowed down to a crawl and described a loop off the coast, taking three days to turn around. Good conversations about the storm created interest, and about the time that Eckern and Hoonigans found an Air Force pilot, Captain Griffin, anxious to go, a Navy man came over from Norman, Oklahoma, and said he had some instruments he would like to carry into the hurricane and get records of conditions encountered. He was told that anybody crazy enough to go was welcome. He introduced himself as a Navy aerologist, Gerald Finger, and they all shook hands and got their things ready. On the afternoon of the 18th, with the hurricane still hanging ominously off the coast, but with some loss of violence, the crew took off for South Texas carrying the Navy man and his instruments. They came into the storm area at about 30,000 feet and proceeded cautiously toward the center. At this level there was very little turbulence, but the view was magnificent. There were mountainous thunderclouds, some extending 15,000 feet above the plane. Carefully they explored the region and finally came into a place where they could see the surface of the gulf white with foam, and piled up clouds ringing a space where the sky was partly clear. This they decided must be the center. Cautiously they went down to 12,000 feet, circling around as they descended and keeping records of temperature, humidity, and pressure. At times they flew through clouds on instruments in the rain, and now and then there was light icing. After about three hours they began to run low on gas, so they flew through the western part of the storm and back to Oklahoma. At the end of the hurricane season these flights were reported to the Weather Bureau and recommendations were forwarded to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that military aircraft be used routinely to explore hurricanes and improve the accuracy of the warnings. The Joint Chiefs referred this to their Meteorological Committee with representatives of the Army Air Corps, the Navy, and the Weather Bureau. And on February 15, 1944, a plan was approved for the coming season. As far as possible, crews with experience in flying the weather were selected. Some of these had been on daily missions on the Atlantic for the protection of convoys. By the beginning of the 1944 season planes and men were at their posts in Florida ready to go on instructions from the Joint Hurricane Center in Miami. Robing of hurricanes by air came to a sharp focus in September 1944. On the 8th, signs of a disturbance were picked up in the Atlantic northeast of Puerto Rico. As it approached the northern Bahamas, its central pressure was extremely low, below 27.00 inches, and estimated at 26.85. And it covered an enormous area with winds of terrific force. From here its center crossed the extreme eastern tip of North Carolina, sideswiped the New Jersey Coast doing vast damage, and then hit Long Island and New England with tremendous fury. On account of the war, ships at sea were not reporting the weather, and the hurricane hunters had a real job on their hands. On the morning of the 10th, Forecaster Norton at the Miami Weather Bureau studied the weather map, grumbled about the lack of observations from the West Indies, and decided to ask for a plane to go out and report the weather north of Puerto Rico. He had little to go on, but he thought it was a very bad storm. On the afternoon of the 9th, the Air Corps had sent a plane out from Antigua. They had reported winds of 80 miles, very rough seas, and center about 250 miles northeast of San Juan. Very little information had come from the area since that time, except the regular weather messages from San Juan. After trying to get the Navy office on the telephone half a dozen times, Norton gave up. Every time he started to dial, the phone rang, and he answered it, making an effort to hang up quickly and get a call in before it rang again. But many people had learned about the storm and were anxious for more information, hence the phone was constantly busy. I thought this was an unlisted phone, he complained to the map crew. It is, replied an assistant. We gave the number only to the radio, press, and a few others to make sure we could get a call out when we had to, but these restricted phone numbers leak out. We'll have to change the number again. Norton squeezed between the map man and the wall, and sat down at the teletype rider on the corner after the operator had stepped out into the hall. The office was crowded, and when one man wanted to leave his place, nearly everybody else had to stand up to make room. Norton rang a bell, rattled the teletype rider, and finally got Commander Loveland on the line down at the Navy office. This was an exclusive line, Weather Bureau to Navy, and Norton pecked out a message. Looks like a bad hurricane out there. It's maybe three days from Florida if it comes here, but it probably won't. Looks like it would go up toward the Carolinas. We can't be sure. Maybe we should have a Reco this morning. What do you think? Think we can get one up there from Puerto Rico this morning, came the message from Loveland. I'll see what I can do. Did you check with the Army? Yes, the Major talked to Colonel Ellsworth, and he says they expect to get a plane out there from Boringan this afternoon. Also, I asked for clearance on a public message yesterday and got an OK last night. At that time, because of the war, public releases about storms along the coast were still restricted and had to be cleared with naval operations in Washington. If enemy submarines learned that planes were being evacuated from airports on the seaboard, they were emboldened to come out in the open and attack shipping along the coast. Oil tankers and other ships would have a bad enough time in the storm without running into submarines openly on the prowl. But the Chiefs of Staff had to balance this against the possible loss of life and property in coastal communities. On their mission to explore the storm, the Navy crew from Puerto Rico ran into heavy rain and turbulence. Badly was nil as they approached the center. They stayed down low to keep a view of the ocean, but found the altimeter badly in error. As soon as they broke out of the clouds, they found the sea was much closer than they had figured. The plane was almost completely out of control several times. They changed course, got out of the storm, sent a message to Miami and returned to Remy Field in Puerto Rico. Steadily the hurricane kept on a west-northwest course, increasing in size and violence. As it went along, the aircraft of the Navy and Air Forces were on its heels and driving toward this center like gnats around an angry bull. It was headed for the Carolinas. Everybody was agreed on that now. Ships were in trouble, running to get from between the hurricane and the coast as the winds closed in, and anxious people waited for the next report. At that time a hurricane was thought to have four stages of existence. First was the formation stage, often with circulatory winds and rain developing in a pressure wave coming westward over the Atlantic or Caribbean. Second it quickly concentrated into a small but very violent whirl, and over a relatively small area had the most violent winds of its existence. In this stage it might not have been more than one hundred miles in diameter. Third it became a mature storm spreading out, and although its winds did not become any more violent, they spread over a much larger area, maybe as much as three hundred miles or more, in diameter. Fourth was the stage of decay, when it began to lose its almost circular shape, and the winds began to diminish. Now it went off to the northward and became an extra-tropical storm, or struck inland in the south, and died with torrential rains and squally winds. This hurricane seemed to be an exception. As it spread out to cover a bigger area, its winds seemed to develop greater fury. A navy plane went in as it approached the Carolinas and found extreme turbulence, winds estimated at a hundred and forty miles an hour, torrential rain that penetrated the airplane, and no visibility through the splatter and smear on the windows. And when the stalwart crew came down below the clouds, the sea was a welter of foam with gusts wiping the tops off waves that reached up to tremendous heights. While no planes were lost in probing this terrible storm, a destroyer, a minesweeper, and two Coast Guard cutters and a light vessel were sunk. An army plane estimated the winds at a hundred and forty miles an hour. The weather officer, Lieutenant Victor Klobisher, said that it was the worst storm that had been probed by the hurricane hunters up to that time. The turbulence was so bad that with both the pilot and co-pilot straining every muscle, the plane could not be kept under control, and several times they thought it would be torn apart or crash into the sea. On returning to the base, the flyers found that a hundred and fifty rivets had been sheared off one wing alone. On the morning of the 14th of September, the terrible tempest was close to the eastern tip of North Carolina, apparently destined to sideswipe the coast from their northward with devastating force. There was some alarm in Washington. It might possibly turn more to the northward, and its center might come up Chesapeake Bay or up the Potomac River. A violent storm in Washington at that time would have been detrimental to the prosecution of war plans. In 1933, a smaller hurricane had taken this course, and its destructive visit to the Bay region and the capital had not been forgotten. Also in the minds of the military was the opportunity offered that day to explore a big hurricane and find out more concerning its inner workings. On that critical morning, Colonel F.B. Wood, a veteran flyer in the Air Corps, came down to Bowling Field outside Washington with hurricane probing on his mind. After talking about it to the men around the field, he decided to try a flight at least into the outer edges of the storm as it passed to the eastward during the day. He thought about the junior officers and the men being sent into these furious winds, and he felt it was a good idea for one of the head men to go out and see what it was like. Wood talked to Lieutenant Frank Reckard and found he was anxious to go. He grabbed the telephone and got Major Harry Wexler on the line. Harry was a weather bureau research official who was in the army for the duration. Harry, how about taking you out in the hurricane today? Wood asked, I'll pilot the plane. Frank is going along? Sure, if you can take me out, but you've got to bring me back. Harry answered, this is a round trip, Floyd, I hope. Wood agreed to do his best to make a round trip out of it. At two o'clock that afternoon, the trio took off and headed east with some misgivings. They knew that this was one of the worst tropical storms that had been charted up to that time. The hurricane was then centered near Cape Henry, Virginia. The wind at Norfolk had been up to 90 miles an hour. Colonel Wood described it as follows. Immediately after takeoff, we penetrated a thin overcast, the top of which was about 1,500 feet, and then proceeded to a point approximately 20 miles northeast of Langley Field. The boundary of the hurricane, as seen from the latter location, was a dense black wall running along the Western edge of the Chesapeake Bay. The airplane was turned on a heading so as to fly a track that would lead straight toward the estimated position of the center of the hurricane. Altitude was 3,000 feet. A drift correction of 30 degrees was allowed to account for the estimated 100 miles per hour crosswind encountered at the outer edge of the storm. Immediately on entering the outer edge, the atmosphere turned very dark, and a blanket of heavy rainfall was encountered. Very surprisingly, the flyers reported that in this area, a strong but steady down current was also encountered. The latter was contrary to the accepted idea that all of the area encompassed by this deep pressure fall in a hurricane contains ascending rather than descending air up to great heights. Although visibility was very low due to the heavy rainfall, there were very few clouds below the altitude of the airplane, 3,000 feet, except for some scud over Cape Henry. The waves in Chesapeake Bay were enormous. A freighter plowing through the bay was being swept from bow to stern by huge waves, which at times appeared to engulf the whole vessel at once. Spray was being thrown into the air at heights which appeared to reach 200 feet above the surface of the bay. From the appearance of the water, both within Chesapeake Bay and east of Cape Henry, it is not surprising that a Navy destroyer of the 1,850-ton class was sunk there. One of the foremost thoughts in the men's minds at the time was that should the aircraft be forced down in the hurricane, neither life raft, maywest, or any other life-saving device would have saved them from drowning. The flight was continued on toward the assumed position of the center of the hurricane. Although the down draft continued strong, very little turbulence was encountered. The airplane lost a speed of about 70 miles per hour in the necessary climb required to make up for the downward motion of the air. The heavy rain continued. At a point approximately 50 to 60 miles inward from the outer edge of the hurricane, they suddenly entered an area of rising air. This area also contained fairly dense clouds below but very thin clouds above. The sun was visible through the thin clouds overhead. They seemed to be on the edge of the center. The vertical air movement was of such magnitude that the airplane was lifted from the 3,000-foot level to 5,000 feet before power could be reduced and the airplane nosed downward. Turbulence in this area was also considerably more severe than in the zone of descending air just passed through, but was not of such severity as to endanger the flight. Although the flight was continued for a few minutes on toward the point where the center of the hurricane was thought to be, the conditions of flight remained constant, that is, moderate turbulence, rising air, and the sun faintly visible through the thin clouds overhead. The men thought they were off to one side or other of the center but not finding it and not knowing the direction in which to fly to locate it exactly. The airplane was turned around and flown on a track which was estimated would lead toward Norfolk. An altitude of 5,000 feet was maintained on the way out. The dark band of descending air and heavy rainfall was traversed in the reverse order as during the incoming flight. They emerged from the hurricane at a point approximately 30 miles east northeast of Norfolk. Afterward, Colonel Wood felt more confident about junior officers flying into hurricanes, but there were many questions yet to be answered. Incidentally, the three men in this plane and the members of the squadron who flew into the same hurricane from Miami were awarded the air medal in February 1945 for their bravery in these flights. Colonel Wood drew the following conclusions. Although one of the more important points indicated by our experience during the aforementioned flight is that hurricanes can very probably be successfully flown through after they have reached temperate latitudes, it should not be accepted as conclusive proof that all hurricanes may be flown through. Although there have been several instances of flights into hurricanes before they migrated out of the tropical regions, it is not known whether at the times the flights were made, any of these storms were of an intensity that even approached the maximum possible. Further, it is not known for certain whether the hurricane that passed along the Virginia coast on the 14th of September is typical of all hurricanes once they reach temperate latitudes. Indications are that this hurricane was about as severe as they ever get to be at these latitudes, but insufficient flying experience in hurricanes has been obtained to determine conclusively that all hurricanes in temperate latitudes are safe to fly through. Any pilot who in the future might desire to repeat the experience referred to in this statement is advised that any hurricane should be approached gingerly and with a view toward making an immediate 180 degree change in his track should severe turbulence, hail, or severe thunderstorm activity be encountered. It is believed that the method of examining a hurricane by flight reconnaissance that would produce the most revealing results is to attempt an approach to it from the stratosphere. It is thought further that such a flight could be made over the outer rim of the hurricane and a let down into the center or hollow eye of the storm be made with complete safety. A record of the temperature at various flight levels while descending through the central hollow portion of the storm together with photographs of the cloud structure would be of tremendous value. In October, there was another hurricane in Florida. It began in the Western Caribbean on the 13th and crossed Western Cuba on the 17th. On the South Coast, the hurricane winds created an enormous tide. More than 300 people were killed and a standard oil company barge was carried 10 miles inland. When the big winds roared across Florida on the 18th and 19th, it was a severe storm with a calm center that was at one time about 70 miles long. As it drove violent winds and seas toward Florida, an airline company, Transcontinental and Western Air decided to investigate and sent an experienced pilot, Captain Robert Buck, in a B-17 to fly through and observe the weather and electrical phenomena in the storm. Of course, he considered the flight hazardous but he was willing. Any person who had experienced the violent winds of these storms or read about their destructive effects was likely to assume that a plane at low levels in the middle part of the storm might have its wings torn off. Buck started to climb into the edge of the storm at Alma, Georgia, going in wearily at 4,000 feet and finding only light to moderate turbulence from there to 9,000 feet after which it became smoother. This was in accordance with the reports of other flyers who had ventured in at high levels and he was reassured. At 11,000 feet, the rain changed to sleet. This was not unexpected. Ordinarily, it is much colder at such a height than at the ground. The temperature drops about one degree for each rise of 300 feet. Although the plane was flying in instrument conditions and blind, there were no ordinary water cloud particles but simply haze and sleet. At 12,700 feet, with the temperature at the freezing point, the plane flew through moderate to heavy snow with very large flakes. The climb was continued and the snow remained moderate but as the altitude increased, the size of the snowflakes decreased. The air was perfectly smooth with the exception of about one minute of light turbulence at 16,000 feet. During the entire climb, no ice was encountered but there were a few patches of snow sticking on the airplane. This was definitely not ice. Due to loss of radio reception on all receivers, including the loop, it was difficult to obtain the wind accurately. It was estimated to be easterly at approximately 85 miles an hour to about 16,000 feet where it changed to westerly with about the same velocity. At 19,400 feet, the temperature had dropped to 27 degrees. At 22,800 feet, the snow was light and fine and the temperature was 18 degrees. The temperature had dropped to 14 degrees at 24,600 feet. At 25,000 feet, the plane broke out of the side of the storm near the top. At 25,800 feet, the plane was flying in the clear where the temperature was 18 degrees. During the entire climb from 9,500 feet to 25,000 feet, no fog was encountered, only particles of snow. Near Jacksonville, Florida, the tops of the clouds dropped sharply to 8,000 feet. The plane flew east out to sea to check the eastern edge of the storm and satisfied the Jacksonville was close to the storm center, proceeded to the coast again and to Daytona Beach where the craft landed. Pilot Buck concluded that the paramount danger lies in an aircraft becoming lost due to the failure of radio navigation caused by static coupled with the high winds. He said that a tropical storm of the type flown is not hazardous to aircraft in respect to structural failure and loss of control if an altitude of over approximately 8,000 feet is held. In December, all the men connected with the Hurricane Warning Service in the Army, Navy, Weather Bureau and other agencies, including the top officials, the forecasters, the men who directed the flights, the pilots, weather officers and others who made up the crews, the radio men on shore and the Coast Guard people were fully represented in a conference in Washington. Here, they all went over their experiences and offered every possible suggestion for improving the service. Many things were needed but two tough problems worried everybody. One was how the crew could find out where they were in latitude and longitude or in distance and direction from some point on an island or on the coast after they found the center of the storm. After all, the weather observer, navigator and the radio man might figure out how to get in the eye and the plane might get into it but if they failed to get their position accurately, the information was of doubtful value. This nearly always depended on radio signals from distant shore stations for it was seldom that they could get a celestial fix as a mate does on a ship at sea. The second problem was communications, how to get the weather message off and be sure it had been received at a shore radio station and see also that it reached the forecast offices promptly. All of this had many sources of delay. In a hurricane, the atmospherics were often excessive. At times, the radio man on the plane could hear nothing but loud static in his earphones. He was powerless to do anything except to send blind and hope somebody would receive it and understand what it was. Slowly these problems were solved in part as time went on. End of chapter nine. Chapter 10 of The Hurricane Hunters by Ivan Ray Tannihill this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 10, Caplers Hurricane. Black it stood as night, fierce as tin furies, terrible as hell. Milton. Caplers Hurricane was one of the most violent of history. It got its name from a weather officer, a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps named Bernard J. Capler. The story includes the vivid personal reactions of a number of men who explored this tremendous storm as it built up its energy while crossing 1500 miles of tropical and subtropical sea surface and finally ravaged parts of Southern Florida, including the outright destruction of the big Richmond Naval Air Base. The fact is that this storm seems to have had its birth over Western Africa. There were signs of it there and near the Cape Verde Islands on the first two days of September. Later there were some indications of its winds and low pressure in radio reports from ships but eventually it was lost for the time being far out in the Atlantic. Capler discovered it on September 12th, 1945. He was on a regular weather reporting mission to the Windward Islands. Every day one or more B-25s took off from Morrison Field at West Palm Beach and explored the atmosphere on flights to Antigua, British West Indies returning via the open Atlantic to Florida. On that day there was nothing unusual until the plane in which Capler was flying was about two hours from Antigua. Here he noted a black wall of clouds to the east and at his suggestion the pilot, First Lieutenant D.A. Cassidy, took the plane down to 1500 feet and they looked around. Without any doubt a tropical storm was in the making. Its winds already were blowing around the center with gusts at about 70 miles an hour. There was moderate turbulence with stretches of rain but they had no particular difficulty in flying through it. They reported it to headquarters and were told to land at Coolidge Field in Antigua and be prepared to take another look and report in the morning. This operation was known as a duck fight consisting of five B-25 aircraft and five crews made up of 20 officers and 15 men. This particular group had been at British Guiana but had moved up to Florida in May for the new hurricane duty. It was their job to explore this region twice daily looking for weather trouble when no storm was known to be in progress. If a suspicious area was found they were deployed and used in accordance with directives from the hurricane center at Miami. The Navy also had planes assigned to similar missions. After breakfast on the 13th Capler's crew took off again. About two hours out of Antigua they encountered winds up to about 80 knots a little above 90 miles an hour but flying was smooth. The crew made a few jokes on the general subject of how easy it was to fly through hurricanes. The co-pilot, Lieutenant Hugh Crow, had the controls. He turned toward the center and the wind picked up 220 knots. Soon they were in trouble with severe turbulence and heavy rain. The airspeed fluctuated between 160 and 240 miles an hour and cylinder temperatures began to fall rapidly. Crow fed to power to the engines but the plane began getting out of control. Cassidy had to help him keep the ship level. Capler shouted that the pressure was dropping rapidly. The pressure altitude was 1700 feet but their actual height was only 900. Crow said the turbulence was the most severe he had ever experienced. The plane yawed 15 degrees on either side of the heading. The navigator, Lieutenant Reading W. Bunting, said dryly, in my opinion a hurricane is not the place in which to fly an airplane. By the 14th it was obvious to all concern that they had a really big storm on their hands. Its center had been north of Puerto Rico on the 13th and on the 14th moving rather rapidly it was passing north of Haiti. The first plane took off from Boringan Field, Puerto Rico, in the morning. Cassidy at the controls and within an hour the crew were getting into it. At the end of this flight, co-pilot Crow said my respect for hurricanes has increased tremendously. First the right engine was not running smoothly and after a little it almost stopped. Cassidy asked Bunting where the nearest land was and when he said Cuba they turned 90 degrees and made for it. After 20 minutes the engine was doing better so they had a brief conference and decided to try for the hurricane center. Turning back they saw gigantic sea swells and a white boiling ocean ahead. Soon they hit the worst turbulence Cassidy had ever seen and with it there were intervals of torrential rain. It was terrific. The cockpit was leaking like a sieve. Most of the time it took full rudder and aileron to lift a wing. The plane got into attitudes they had never dreamed of. It was impossible to hold a heading for the ship was yawing more than 30 degrees and taking a terrible side buffeting. Maybe this lasted three to five minutes but it seemed like hours. Suddenly they passed through the edge of the center. It was smooth for about a minute and then they were in the worst part again. Bunting noted a piece of advice when you are near the center about all you can do is brace yourself and hold on to something that won't pull loose. Bunting reported afterward that it took both pilot and co-pilot to control the ship and at times the RPM set at 2,100 would drop to 1,900 and then rise to 2,200 due to the terrific force of the wind. Kepler kept phoning the correct altitude to the pilot at short intervals because of the enormous changes in pressure. It was impossible to write in the logbook so he scribbled as best he could on a piece of paper and copied it afterward. He noted that before entering the eye it was very dark. Inside it was cloudy but the light was better indicating that the upper clouds were missing. When the flight was finished the crew was glad to be back at Morrison Field to put it mildly. Another plane at Morrison Field had been out the day before and soon was taking off again at 2 p.m. The pilot was Lieutenant A. D. Gunn. He flew a direct course to the center of the storm. He hadn't realized the day before that he was elected to go through it again today so he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. These two days had provided his first such experience. One cylinder head slid to a very low temperature in the heavy rain and Gunn dropped the landing gear and tried to keep it up to 100 degrees but one engine died. The turbulence was so bad that neither he nor the copilot could tell which engine was out. The severe turbulence lasted for a full 30 minutes, about 10 minutes of this being flown on one engine with the crew desperately working on the other while they bounced around. The flight engineer, Sergeant Harry Keithover, had to leave his seat because of water pouring down his back and the tossing up and down with his head repeatedly hitting the top of the plane. He tried to go back to join the navigator but the plane started to fall off to the right and he had visions of ditching in a mass of white foam. The pilot got it under control but it seemed that they were being tossed about like popcorn in a popper. Gradually the turbulence ceased, the other engine began running smoothly and they headed straight for Morrison. But the conditions on the 14th were just an introduction to what happened on the 15th. The first crew took off at 7 a.m. with the edge of the hurricane causing rough weather at the field. Here is the story told by the navigator, Lieutenant James P. Dalton. Frankly speaking throughout my entire life I have been frightened, really frightened, only three times. All of this was connected intimately with weather reconnaissance. I think I can truthfully and without exaggeration say that absolutely the worst time was while I was flying through Kapler's hurricane on September 15, 1945. We were stationed at Morrison Field, West Palm Beach, Florida at the time. Everyone except the duck flight, Reco Quadron had evacuated the field for safer areas the day before. Hurricane reconnaissance being our business we of course stayed on in order to operate as closely as possible to the storm. We were to take off at 7 a.m. local time and by then several thunderstorms had already appeared thoroughly drenching us before we could climb into our plane. But each crew member was keenly alert for he knew what to expect. I've flown approximately 1500 normal weather reconnaissance hours that is if you call going out and looking for trouble normal flying. I have covered the Atlantic completely north of the equator to the Arctic Circle flying in all kinds of weather and during all seasons but never has anything like this happened to me before. One minute this plane seemingly under control would suddenly wrench itself free, throw itself into a vertical bank and head straight for the steaming white sea below. An instant later it was on the other wing this time climbing with its nose down at an ungodly speed. To ditch would be disastrous. I stood on my hands as much as I did on my feet. Rain was so heavy it was as if we were flying through the sea in a submarine. Navigation was practically impossible. For not a minute could we say we were moving in any single direction. At one time I recorded 28 degrees drift. Two minutes later it was from the opposite direction almost as strong. But then taking a drift reading during the worst of it was out of the question. I was able to record a wind of 125 miles an hour and I still don't know how it was possible the air was so terribly rough. At one time though our pressure altimeter was indicating 2,600 feet due to the drop in pressure when we actually were at 700 feet. At this time the bottom fell out. I don't know how close we came to the sea but it was far too close to suit my fancy. Right then and there I prayed. I vouched if I would come out alive I would never fly again. By the time we reached the center of the storm I was sick, real sick and terribly frightened but our job was only half over. We still had to fly from the center out which proved to be as bad if not worse than going in. Mind you for the first time and after flying over 1500 hours I was air sick and I wasn't alone. Our radio operator spilt his cookies just before we reached the center. After a total of five hours we landed at Eglin the entire crew much happier to be safely back on the ground. At the time of our take off we really didn't think it was possible to fly safely through a hurricane. Personally I still don't and I say again I hope never to be as frightened as the time I flew through Kapler's hurricane. It isn't safe. Lieutenant Gunn, the pilot who had been in it the day before was a man who took things calmly. He reported his experience. This morning the storm was only an hour and a half from the field. The usual line of squalls around the edge of the storm was hitting Morrison Field about every hour and a half. Of course this trip was to take us through the very center. We left Morrison at 1000 feet. The entire flight was turbulent and rainy. We circled the storm counterclockwise again and ran into the same turbulence and rain as before. This time the clouds must have been as low as five or 600 feet as even though we were only at 1000 feet we could seldom get a glimpse of the ocean which was turned up to such an extent that it seemed to be one big white cap. The altimeter was off 1000 feet at one point placing us at 500 feet. Then we could see the water. I believe even the fish drowned that day. As we entered the northeast quadrant, it got so rough that both pilot and co-pilot were flying the ship at the same time. The winds were so great at this point one could actually see the ship drifting over the sea. I think we had a drift correction of 35 to 40 degrees at times. I don't think anyone will form a habit of this particular job. Prior to taking off, I tried to take out hurricane insurance but it seems that they have no policies covering B-25 planes. Anyway, all the insurance salesmen had evacuated to some distant place like Long Beach, California. Sergeant Robert Matski, the radio operator, put it this way. September 15 was the day I was picked on a crew to fly the hurricane. Having been forewarned by several of the boys who had returned from the hurricane the day before, I set myself for something a little rougher than a weather mission with occasional turbulence. I figured that we had flown through what could well be considered rough weather while flying reconnaissance out of the Azores and maybe the boys were trying to throw a little scare into us as new men to the Morrison initiation. It seemed that we had no sooner left the ground when we encountered rain and turbulence. This made me sort of leery of what was to come and I figured that if I were to send weather messages while in a hurricane, I'd have to send a blind as the receivers were noisy already and to hear an answer to a call would be almost an impossibility. As we proceeded toward the storm, the rain became more intense and things were getting quite damp in the ship. There was a leak right over my table and the steady downpour of water through this opening made it necessary for me to write with the log tablet braced against my knee to keep it from getting wet. The awful bouncing was getting my stomach and when we actually entered the hurricane, it took all my strength to reach for the key to send a message. After a while, I called to Lieutenant Schudel, our weather observer and told him that I was sick and would have to rest my head on the table for a while. I had felt bad in a plane before but this was the first time that I was deathly sick. After a few minutes, it was with all the strength that I could muster that I rolled my head to one side of the table and lost a few cookies. After I vomited a while, I felt 100% better and I went to work pounding out the messages that had accumulated. It was impossible for me to hear any signals on the receivers due to atmospherics so I sent blind repeating myself over and over in the hopes that someone would copy and relay to Miami for me. Our ships were vacating to Eglin Field that day and Sergeant LeCaptain was standing watch on the frequency I was using. He came through with a receipt and I got to where I could hear in my receivers again. The flight that day was the roughest I have ever been on and a lot of my time was taken up just holding on for dear life and watching the B-4 bags bouncing up and down en masse like a big rubber ball. I was glad when the wheels hit the runway at Eglin Field and hungry too for my breakfast had stayed with me for a very short time. I imagine I looked rather beat up when I stepped from the plane but the ground felt so darn good under my feet and I didn't care who knew that I had been sicker than a dog. Each member of the crew saw a little different part of the picture. Boys who flew these missions regularly became a matter of fact in their reports and it was only when they were involved in a really big storm that they talked frankly about their feelings. Here is the story of the flight engineer, Sergeant Don Smith in Kapler's Hurricane on September 15. The morning of the 15th loomed dark and formidable. This was our day to take a fling at the hurricane the other boys were telling us so much about. As a matter of fact, it doesn't make you feel as though you were going on a Sunday school picnic. From the time we took off until we hit the storm we encountered turbulence and white caps were dashing around like mad but they were mild compared to what was coming. We circled the storm before heading for the center. We were hitting rain and moderate turbulence all this time. All at once we broke through the overcast and for a few seconds I wondered if it were letting up but only for a second. One instant everything was peaceful and the next instant we were getting slapped around like a punching bag with Joe Lewis on the prod. I looked at the bank and a turn indicator and the rate of climb and they both looked as if they were going all out to win a jitterbug contest. Now it was really raining. You've never seen it rain until you've been in a hurricane. I couldn't even see the engines from the cockpit window. I knew our ride engine was the least bit rough before we started out and all I could think of was for gosh sakes don't be cutting out now. Before we were out of it the engine sounded like a one cylinder Harley motorcycle but really she never missed a beat. It was about this time that our cylinder head temperature dropped down to about 90 degrees and the pilot dropped the wheels to bring it back up and it was also about this time that we started for a milder climate. Don't ask me if I was scared or not it would only be a fool or a liar who would say he wasn't worried. One thing about it is that you're so busy hanging on and trying to keep from getting thrown on your face that there isn't much time to think whether you're scared or not. It's really rough but there are no words to describe it. You'd have to go along to get the picture. Lieutenant Kapler for whom the hurricane was named was due to go to Eglin Field with the crew that penetrated the hurricane on the 14th but he wanted to stay over and see more of it so they took him on and although they already had a weather officer Lieutenant Howard Schadell Kapler was allowed to go as photographer. Schadell made the weather report from which the following is extracted. The rain was moderate at a distance from the center but already I was drenched because of a leaky nose in the ship. We flew almost completely around the center with nothing especially spectacular. At about 20 miles from the center we encountered severe turbulence which lasted only until the center was hit. During this time is when I found myself trying to code two weather messages at once and not doing a very good job on either. I actually was too busy to get very scared as to whether or not the plane would hold together. Between the severe turbulence and the water which by then had covered the entire deck I could hardly read my own writing a half hour later when I was able to send the messages to the radio man. The turbulence near the center was of a nature I had never experienced previously. It was not a sharp jolt as experienced in a cumulus cloud but more of a rhythmic up and down motion. But on top of this there was a motion from side to side that made it especially rough. To me the most unwelcome side of the whole trip was the swelling churning sea. From 900 feet which seemed to be our average altitude the height of the spray above the ocean could not be determined. In places the surface was covered with sharp white streaks. If one thought for very long about what would happen to him if he were forced down upon this boiling ocean he would be cured of hurricane flying for some time to come. The center was very welcome. The turbulence there was only light and the intense rain stopped completely. This gave me a momentary breather so that I could swallow my stomach, assure myself that I was not sick and code up a few back messages. The morning crew went to Eglin Field and only one ship and crew was left at Morrison as the big storm closed in. The weather officer on this last flight was Lieutenant Edward Burdett. He said the weather during the entire morning at Morrison was bad. There were numerous thunderstorms with heavy rain showers that reduced visibility at times to less than one quarter mile. Our flight took off at 10 a.m. We went just east of Miami where the wind was easterly at about 50 knots. We circled the storm center according to instructions and the wind went around from east to north and then through west to south. We experienced not only vertical currents but shearing horizontal currents. It is surprising that an airplane can hold together under such punishment. I found that there is no dry place in the nose of a B-25 in hurricane rain and I had to sit on the papers to keep them fairly dry but I was also troubled in trying to keep myself from being battered against the side of the plane. We did not enter the eye of the storm but were in the northeast corner. The pilot later remarked, our left wing tip may have been in the calm but we sure as hell weren't. It was here that I experienced the worst turbulence and the heaviest rain I have ever seen. The noise was terrific. Lieutenant Burdette added, the worst part of flying hurricanes is the fact that if there should be some trouble structural or otherwise that would force the plane down, the crew would not have a chance of getting out alive. The best part is the fact that you know that you are instrumental in providing adequate warning to all concern and in saving lives and property. During the time when these crews were flying into Kapler's hurricane and sending reports to the Miami Center on September 15, the people of Florida were making last-minute preparations. Windows were boarded up, streams of refugees filled the highways, the radios were full of warnings and the benchesome stood on the street corners as the gales began roaring in the wires and big waves came booming against the coast. Palm trees bent nearly double and debris began to fill the air. There was great damage at the Richmond Naval Air Base. Three big lighter-than-air hangars were destroyed. They collapsed in the wind at or near the peak of the hurricane and intense fires fed by high-octane gasoline consumed the remains. An investigating committee found that the winds must not have been less than 161 miles an hour to account for the bending of the large steel doors. Weather records recovered from the base indicated a two-minute wind of more than 170 miles an hour and as high as 198 miles an hour for a few seconds. The center of the hurricane crossed the southern tip of Florida and moved up the west coast on the 16th as it turned northeastward and then swept over Georgia and the Carolinas. Its center lay on the Georgia coast on the 17th. The boys who flew to Eglin Field had to take it again as its center came near and some of them flew into the hurricane after it passed Eglin. Among these was another weather officer, Lieutenant George Gray, who had seen this storm in several different places and now viewed it from the air as it whipped the Georgia coast. His report is worth reading. Writing through Kapler's hurricane was as rough a trip as I ever cared to take. Admittedly, I know very little about flying from a pilot's point of view, how hard it is to keep a ship steady, the gyro, the cylinder head temperature and all the rest that had the boys so worried. My criterion for roughness has always been how hard it is for me to hold on and how much the airspeed fluctuates. We up front had to hold on with both hands when the going got bad. Some of the boys in back we heard with close to a thousand hours, reconnaissance flying actually got sick. The thing though that really frightened us was not the turbulence so much because we had had to hold on with both hands before. It was the rain and the white sea below. We saw the rain first from a lot. It looked absolutely black as if a sudden darkness had set in in that part of the sky. The blackness seemed to hang straight down like a thick dark curtain from a solid alto-stratus deck at about 15,000 feet. How much further above this layer the buildup extended, I do not know. I kept thinking we're not actually going into that. We did though and somehow with all the rush we didn't have so much time to worry and become frightened as we expected. The rain was really terrific. It leaked in the nose and ran in a flood down the crawlway. The nose usually leaks and soaking on a trip is not at all unusual, but this was different. I have never seen the water pour in and spurt so before. Where the plexiglass meets the floor section there was a regular fountain about six inches high that flooded the whole area. The noise was terrific. It pounded and crushed against the top and sides till we thought it would all collapse in upon us. I didn't notice any particular temperature change in the heavy rain, though the pilus afterward all reported enormous cooling in the engines. Writing was almost impossible. The forms and charts on the table were like so much paper mache. There was no place that we could put them out of the water's way. We noticed the ocean particularly on the last day when the storm swept out to sea again off the Georgia coast. The day before on our way back to Morrison Field from Egland where we rode out the blow we flew low over the Everglades and saw ruthless homes and millions of uprooted palmettoes. The next day as we flew up the coast we could see other remnants of the storm. Huge pieces of timber, trees, roofs of buildings, and maybe even houses. The interphone was busy all the while. As first one and then another of the crew saw something also afloat. As we got nearer the storm but still only in the scattered stradocumulus which is typical of almost any overwater flight the rubbish seemed to disappear. Whether it was simply that the water itself was too rough for the timber to stand out or whether everything lay below the seething whiteness I don't know. On our first trip into a tropical storm the navigator kept repeating over the interphone that water gives me the creeps. It did. I kept thinking about ditching in it and floundering around in a May west. I guess we all did. The waves were huge. Every now and then one would crest up and adjust as it was about to crash the wind would grab hold of the foam and mist and crash it back into the sea. I took several pictures of the gradually heightening sea though I doubt that its seething alive look could be transposed to paper. We saw the storm hit the Carolina Cape. It was easy to see how trees in the Florida swamp without much root to grasp the earth were uprooted. Trees along the Carolina and Georgia coasts, big ones, taller than the houses in the vicinity, were bending before the blow. The way wheat seems to ebb and flow in a summer's breeze. The seas were very high and in occasional breaks in the lower clouds we could catch glimpses of yellowish breakers and a littered beach. It looked as if the rain and thrashing surf had churned up the bottom and mud had mixed with the foamy water. The shore was littered with debris, big trees and blackened seaweed mostly. As a sort of a side on the matter of stirring up the bottom we found several conch shells and bits of coral on the beach after the storm that are not considered native in these parts. Whether this next is typical of hurricanes or merely evidence that the storm had spent itself, I don't know, but I do think it worthy of mention. We noticed occasional breakups in the clouds, not large areas, just a few seconds, when everything brightened and when the firm outlines of a large cumulus could be seen through thin, low scud. This was not in the center, but as much as 40 miles away where the stuff should have been most solid and where the sea was nearest roughest. I have seen the eye of a hurricane on land as a weather forecaster. At that time we noticed a real breakup with stars and moonlight visible. The wind and noise stopped for a while and we could see an occasional bulge and cumulus through the night. Whether this phenomenon is due merely to less energy available over land than over water, I wouldn't even guess. In any event, we noticed no such complete break in the eye at sea. In the center, so-called calm, though for my money it was mighty rough, about all that we noticed was that the pounding rain stopped for a minute or so. The clouds did not break clear through. There was a slight breakup to perhaps 5,000 feet. There were bases of cumulus and several indefinite layers below this overcast, though. The terrific bouncing around also stopped. We were out of the place in just a minute or two so the eye couldn't have been much more than five miles in diameter. Some of the other ships circled in the center saw a flock of birds milling around there and noted violent up and down drafts near its edge. We were in and out of the thing so fast that frankly we hardly had time to notice anything. I think we could have fallen the 700 feet to the water without my knowing it. We were so busy with the camera, papers and instruments. I might say a little more about the cloud formations we noticed since it was my job on this day to note them and take pictures of them while the other observers tried to compute pressure. Ahead of the storm here at Morrison Field on the morning of the 16th, we got a good picture of pre-Hurricane thunderstorms. Squalls with 40-mile gusts swept across the runways. The rain came down in sheets so that we could watch it move toward us like a dark wall. Some of the boys outloading one of the ships for evacuation saw one of these terrific showers bearing down on them and they started to run for cover. The water was moving faster than they could run and before they moved 50 feet, they were soaked to the skin. On the morning of the 17th, it lay just off the Georgia coast and had started to re-deepen. We flew up the 80th meridian though it was hard to hold any steady course. As some of the navigators have probably mentioned, we could see our own drift. After we noted a good wind shift into the east to assure us that we were in the northeast quadrant, we headed across current for the center and once more headed roughly for the great outside to the west. With such terrific drift, I don't see how anyone knew where he was going. The usual over-water five-tenths strato-cumulus bases at 2,000 tops at 3,500 gradually began to lower at about 125 miles from the center to roughly 800 feet and a fairly solid lower layer of clouds. Flying above this layer at about 4,500 feet, we could see tall bulging cumulus and thickening alto stratus at about 15,000 ahead. There were other thin layers of strato-cumulus and alto stratus, but it wasn't until we got within 50 miles or so of the center and the rain really began to come down and the cumulus were as thick as trees in a forest that these intermediary layers began to thicken and thatch in between the tall cumulus. The way they do in any well-developed storm system. By 50 miles out, we were in solid cloud and heavy rain. Picture-taking became impossible except in the occasional breaks mentioned above. Even these breaks, if they should come out, would show little because continuous instrument weather, to me at least, looks pretty much the same whether it's part of a violent hurricane or smooth circulation stratus over a seaboard town. You can see the wingtips and not much more. If a general conclusion is necessary, mine would simply be that I'd just as soon not tempt fate in any more such storms. Sometimes birds such as Lieutenant Gray describes are carried hundreds of miles before they escape from the hurricane. Species from Florida have been found as far north as New England. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of The Hurricane Hunters by Ivan Ray Tannihill this Libberbox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 11, Tricks of the Trade. A gallant bark with magic virtue graced, swift at our will with every wind to fly so that no changes of the shifting sky, no stormy terrors of the watery waste might bar our course. Dante. After two years of probing tropical storms by air, nearly everybody connected with the operation agreed that it was hazardous. But most of the men who were active in it had one main idea. As soon as the winds, rain, clouds, seas, and calm center of the average hurricane had been thoroughly mapped, a standard method should be devised for flying into the center and getting the vitally needed weather information en route with the least possible danger to the craft and crew. They thought of something like a football team. Each man highly trained in a definite job with faultless teamwork and all members of the crew on the alert every moment. Courses of instruction were organized. In all of them, one fact became abundantly clear in the first two years. No two hurricanes are exactly alike. All of them are big compared with thunderstorms and tornadoes, but some are much larger than others. The wreckle crew may run into one in the uncertain stages of formation and at other times they may be nosing into an old storm with strange and unsymmetrical parts. Of certain elements, they were reasonably sure. All these storms have clouds, rain, squalls, and central low pressure with strong winds spiraling more or less regularly in a direction against the motion of the hands of a clock. With these thoughts in mind, the instructors tried to devise methods that would prevent accidents. What do you mean accidents? Asked a junior weather officer at one of the conferences. The whole thing is just one big accident, if you ask me. There's only one rule that's any good. Just be careful and don't fall in the ocean. As a matter of fact, most of the rules had that one vital thought in mind, but there were different ways of doing it. The Air Corps and Navy soon developed their own special methods. From the beginning, the Navy preferred the low-level method. That is, they flew by the quickest route to the calm center of the storm, going in at a low level, generally at an elevation between 300 and 700 feet. There are good reasons for this. Weather information, especially the facts they want about tropical storms, is vital to the safe operation of surface ships, such as cruisers, destroyers, and minesweepers, and it is also used in the movement of aircraft from and do the decks of carriers. Task forces want to know about the speed and direction of winds at sea level, as well as the condition of the sea when storms are imminent. It was the aim of the Navy to keep their weather reconnaissance aircraft below the level of clouds, where the aerologist could watch the surface of the sea as much of the time as is possible within the limits of reasonably safe operation. When in a tropical storm, the aerologist guided the pilot around or into the center. Down near the water, say 100 to 300 feet altitude, turbulence is apt to be very bad. Sometimes extremely violent. Above 700 feet, clouds are likely to interfere, and this was extremely dangerous at that altitude in those early years, because the altimeter, which they used to indicate height of the aircraft by pressure of the atmosphere, was sometimes badly in error in a tropical storm. If the pilot and the aerologist lost sight of the water surface for a few minutes, they suddenly found the aircraft about to strike the precipitous waves of a storm-lashed sea. Pressure of the atmosphere falls with increase of elevation, roughly one inch drop in pressure for each 1,000 feet. If we put an ordinary barometer reading 29.90 inches in a plane on the ground and go up 1,000 feet, it will read about 28.90 inches. The pressure altimeter is a special type of barometer that shows elevation instead of pressure. When the pressure is 29.90 inches and the altimeter is set at zero, we go up to where the pressure is 28.90 inches and it reads 1,000 feet. But if the pressure over the region falls to 28.90 inches and the altimeter is not adjusted, it will read 1,000 feet at the ground and be roughly 1,000 feet in error when we go up to where the reading is 27.90 inches. In ordinary weather, big changes in the barometer take place slowly and there usually is plenty of time for correction. In a flight into a hurricane, big changes take place rapidly. The change caused by the plane going up may be confused with the drop in pressure in the hurricane. If the plane is in the clouds, when these changes take place, the pilot may have a frightening surprise on coming into the clear again. More recently, the hunters have been equipped with radar altimeters which give the absolute altitude for check. They send a radar pulse downward and it is bounced back from the sea surface to the instrument. The time it takes to go down and back depends on the height, the higher, the longer it takes, and the instrument is designed to give the indication very accurately in feet. Thus, the radar altimeter removed some of the dangers of low-level flight. So the Navy hunters moved in at low levels, preventing the mush from becoming a splash, as they put it, and although their experienced pilots were marvelously efficient in flying on instruments in clouds or on the gauges, they kept the white welter of the storm last sea in view whenever possible. Of course, it is not possible to fly straight into a storm center. The big winds carry the plane with them and so the pilot might as well use the winds to good advantage. He will go with them to some extent, whether he likes it or not. If we examine ourselves in the center of the hurricane, facing forward along the line of motion of the storm itself, not the motion of the winds around the center, we know that the safest sector to fly in is behind us on our left and the worst is in front of us on our right. At the left rear, there is likely to be better weather, less dense cloudiness and not so much rain. The winds are not so violent, so the Navy pilot flies with the wind. He goes in until he has winds of, say, 60 miles an hour. He puts the wind on the port quarter and this carries him gradually toward the center of the hurricane. When he gets the wind speed to suit him, he brings the wind between the starboard quarter and dead a stern and flies ahead to the point where he thinks he has the best place to go for the center. According to Commander N. Brango, one of the Navy's top specialists in hurricane navigation by air, choosing the proper run in spot is tricky business, for it is the point at which the wind is the reciprocal of the storm's direction of motion. The pilot must watch for this point carefully as he may pass it quickly. If he does, there is imminent danger that the drift may carry the aircraft into the most severe quadrant of the hurricane. So the pilot goes into the center without wasting any time. Delay results in fatigue and it is important that the men be freshly alert. The pilot puts the wind broad on the port beam and he cannot possibly miss the eye. The next thing, the plane is in that amazing region where the sea boils, the breezes are light or missing altogether, the rain has ceased and the clouds are arranged in circular tiers like giant spectators in a colossal football stadium. This is a marvelous place. The crew is at ease, coffee goes around. In the last few moments before coming into the eye, the craft leaks like a sieve. Everything is wet, but the squirting from a hundred crevices in the plane ceases in the center and now it is possible to do some paperwork. The aerologist is busy with the weather code and the radio man begins pounding out a message. They circle around. The pilot takes them up to maybe 5,000 feet altitude and back down again, circling around. And then the time comes to leave the center. The pilot calls a warning over the phone and there are two or three wisecracks but this departure from the eye is dangerous. The plane begins to catch the sheer of powerful winds around the center. Here a man can get thrown around violently and be seriously hurt if he fails to get a good grip on something or neglects his safety belt. Now the pilot sets the wind broad on the starboard beam and both he and the co-pilot hang onto the controls. This is rough going and there may be some surprises but after a little they are out of the big wind circle and the navigator thinks the gales are down to something like 50 knots. The pilot sets course for the Navy airfield and the staccato notes of the radio continue to carry vital weather information to the forecasters. On the subject, Captain Robert Minter an old hand at one time in charge of aerology in the office of naval operations is full of enthusiasm. He guaranteed that the Navy could get a ship off the ground on a hurricane probe within an hour after the weather bureau forecaster asked for the information. The Air Force has a different problem. Like the Navy, they are dedicated to the task of getting vital weather data for the forecasters but their own problem is to evacuate military aircraft from threatened bases and get information needed for aeronautics. Also, they have the responsibility of giving weather forecasts and warnings to the Army. Until a few years after World War II the Air Corps was a part of the Army and when all three services were joined in the Department of Defense the Air Force kept the weather job for both departments as a matter of economy and efficiency. Therefore, for this and other reasons the Air Force follows a hurricane probing plan which differs from the Navy's. Flying generally at higher levels in tropical storms the Air Force as much as the Navy puts a great deal of reliance on radar which has become a marvelous aid in watching the weather. In the beginning years ago radar was not designed for weather purposes however. During World War II radar was used to spy on enemy ships and aircraft in fog or in darkness to distances of 150 miles or more. The high frequency rays sent out by the radar strike the object and are reflected back to the transmitter where a sort of a silhouette appears on a scope. It may be black with white areas showing images of solid objects such as planes and ships. In those days early in World War II the weather was a nuisance to the radar people. It often seemed to interfere with the use of radar for military purposes but the operator soon learned that the interference came from raindrops in local or general storms and that the rainy areas could be located and followed on the scope and with the proper design the apparatus could be used as a weather radar. The first experiments with radar carried on board aircraft in organized tropical storm reconnaissance were made in 1945. Within three years all the planes were carrying radar sets and had crew members whose sole business it was to watch the radar scope and tell the pilots and weather officers what kind of weather lay ahead. Scarcely had these observations begun when the radar weathermen discovered an amazing fact. On the radar a tropical storm looks like an octopus with a donut for a body and arms that spiral around the body as if the creature had been caught in a whirlpool. These arms are bands of squally whether oftentimes a violent turmoil. Between the bands or octopus arms the wind is furious of course but there is less turbulence and cloudiness and here the aircraft is in much less trouble than in the squall bands. The cause of these violent bands spiraling around the center has not been figured out yet for sure but all tropical storms have them and the hunters are beginning to understand them better. The distance you can see from the radar station depends on how much weather there is. If there are large patches of dense rain they may reflect all the rays back to the receiver and none may go through to show other rain areas farther away. Because of this the radar shows the eye of the storm but usually not the entire circle of clouds around a distant eye. Not enough radar energy is left to reflect from the opposite side of the eye. For this and other reasons it is necessary to have an experienced man to interpret the images on the radar scope. From a radar in an airplane at high levels these limitations are not so troublesome. Recently too the range of military radars has been increased whereas the radar formerly was very useful in getting a view of the eye from the aircraft it did not give the eye's geographical position which had to be determined by other means except when the eye was close enough to be seen from the coast. With increased range the aircraft can get between the hurricane center and the coast or an island and both appear on opposite sides of the radar scope. In such cases the distance and direction of the eye from a known point on a coast or island can be figured. In the last two years the Navy has used radar methods of this type extensively to obtain fixes of hurricane centers at night. In these instances the crews fly at greater height than in daylight and can get the eye and the coast on the scope at the same time. This gives a good estimate of center location to supplement the daylight penetrations without flying into the storm center in darkness. Actually night flights directly into hurricane centers were not profitable as non-radar observations of sea surface clouds and winds were not possible in darkness. It is apparent that a plane going into a storm at some upper level soon gets into the clouds and the sea surface is no longer visible but the crew can depend on the radar to help find the center and they can go down in the eye of the storm and look around and if necessary the plane can descend in the outer parts of the storm and get estimates of the wind by a drift meter. For this latter procedure the air forces at one time used what they called a low level boxing procedure. On this we can get the facts from the instructions issued by the head of the Air Weather Service Brigadier General Thomas Mormon Jr. a veteran of weather operations in World War II and in charge of weather reconnaissance in the Pacific including the work done so effectively during the Korean War. In 1953 Mormon directed that in the interest of flying safety there will be no low level penetration of hurricanes. The air force pilots were asked to go into and out of the eye at the pressure level of 700 millibars which under average conditions is at about 10,000 feet altitude. Within 100 miles of a land mass the flights in a hurricane would be at a minimum altitude of 2,000 feet. To put it in part in the general's words the hurricane mission would be conducted as follows. For high level penetration the first priority would be given to obtaining an observed position of the storm center either by a radar fix plus a navigation fix on the aircraft position or a position found by penetrating the storm and obtaining a navigation fix in the eye. The storm would be approached on a track leading directly toward the center. If the storm center could not be reached at the 700 millibar level the low level boxing procedure could be followed but if the radar set was not operating no attempt would be made under these conditions to go into the eye. For the low level boxing procedure the following instructions applied quoting General Mormon in part. The storm area is approached on a track leading directly to the storm center and may be approached from any direction as the winds increase in velocity corrections will be made so that the wind is from the left and perpendicular to the track. The point at which the box is started is the midpoint of the base side of the rectangular pattern to be flown around the storm. When the winds of 60 knots are encountered the first leg will be started with a 90 degree turn to the right. The low level box will be flown within the 45 to 60 knot wind area maintaining a true track for the first half of the leg then a true heading for the succeeding legs. Surface winds should be 45 degrees from the right when the left turn is made to the next leg. Double drift winds should be obtained on each corner observation and each midpoint when practical. Reconnaissance of an area of a suspected hurricane will be flown with the same procedure. The weather observer will check the co-pilot's altimeter at frequent intervals to ensure that it is reading the same as the radar altimeter. All flights will depart storm area prior to sunset regardless of the degree of completion of the mission. Flight altitude while boxing the storm will be a minimum of 500 feet absolute altitude or at such higher altitude as will permit observations of the sea surface without hazard to safety. If contact flight cannot be maintained at 500 feet the legs will be flown a greater distance from the eye. The boxing procedure was used a great deal by the Air Weather Service in the early years but by 1954 it had been eliminated. The 700 millibar method was revised and as used in flights out of Bermuda in 1954 was described by Captain Ed Vrable, navigator in part as follows. One, the aircraft flies downwind at right angles to the storm path to a point of lowest pressure about 20 miles directly in front of the eye. Two, flight is continued downwind for three minutes beyond the low point and then the heading of the aircraft is changed to 135 degrees to the left. Three, the aircraft continues on this course until the pressure begins to rise and then turns 90 degrees to the left and into the center. This new Air Force plan of flying into the hurricane at 700 millibars, 10,000 feet roughly is much like the Navy's low level method except that the Air Force crews enter downwind across the front of the storm but this is nearly always an advantage for aircraft based at Bermuda. From that island, their most direct approach to an oncoming storm is into the front semi-circle. The Air Force has another aid in measuring weather in a storm. It is an instrument called a drop sonde, a specially designed apparatus which works on the same principle as the older radio sonde. A marvelously ingenious instrument, the radio sonde is a unit of very small weight containing miniature instruments for measuring pressure, temperature and humidity. It also has a metering device, a battery and a small radio transmitter. The apparatus is carried aloft by a rubber balloon filled with helium. As the balloon rises, the radio transmitter sends signals for pressure, temperature and humidity at each level reached and the signals are copied on a register at the ground weather station. The drop sonde is a radio sonde that is thrown out of the aircraft flying at a high level and allowed to descend by parachute instead of being carried up by a balloon. There is a special listening post in the plane where the data are recorded as the apparatus descends. The data are then put into the form of a message for transmission by the plane's radio operator to the forecasting base. This work with a drop sonde is usually done by the radar operator in addition to his other duties. Much of this fascinating work is done by the Air Weather Service of the Air Force on routine daily flights, whether or not there is a tropical storm to be studied. As an example, they have made daily flights from Alaska to the North Pole and back to keep tabs on the strange weather up there. And this way, there and in other parts of the world, they get weather daily from places on land and sea where there are no weather stations, no merchant ships to report, and no people to act as weather observers. These flights are named after some bird common to the region. The North Pole flight is called Tarmigan. Others are called Bulture, Gull, et cetera. Special flights into tropical storms in the Atlantic and Caribbean are called Duck missions. Some of these improvements in the hurricane hunting methods of the Air Weather Service were mentioned in a report by Robert Simpson, a weather bureau meteorologist who flew with the Air Force into Hurricane George in 1947. This was a big storm which appeared first over the ocean to the eastward of the Lesser Antilles. The squadron assigned to the job had been moved to Kindle Field at Bermuda. Simpson saw Lieutenant Colonel Robert David who was in command and arranged for the flight in one of the new planes piloted by an experienced officer, Lieutenant Mack Eastburn. Hurricane George, so called by the Air Force boys, although such names were not then official, moved slowly and menacingly across the Atlantic north of Puerto Rico and headed toward Florida. Simpson was in it several times with the Air Force. On the first flight they were in an old B-29 which had too many hours on the engines and had been a bad actor on the previous missions, but this time it behaved like a lady and they picked up a great deal of useful information. On the next trip they had a new plane here as a part of Simpson's story. Success is a marvelous stimulant while we had every right to be near exhaustion after our 13 drying hours this first day in Hurricane George, we did not get to bed early that night. There was too much to tell and too much to discuss concerning the flight scheduled to leave early the next morning. This second flight promised to be even more lucrative of results than the first, but we were scheduled to fly in the newest plane in the squadron. It had only 100 hours or so in the air and contained many new features the other planes did not have. Moreover, it had bomb bay tanks and could leave the ground with nearly 8,500 gallons of gasoline. There were a few changes in the crew but Eastburn was the pilot again on the second flight. The takeoff was scheduled for 6.30 a.m. The storm was in a critical position as far as warnings were concerned and the Miami office was anxious to get information as early as possible about which to base a warning for the east coast. George was located over the eastern Bahamas and was moving slowly westward, a distinct threat to the entire eastern seaboard but immediately to the Florida coast. The first hint of what was in store for the hurricane hunters that day turned up as they completed their briefing at the ship and prepared to board the plane. The engineer in a last minute checkup found a hydraulic leak and there was a delay of a little more than an hour before that could be repaired. Finally they pulled away from the line and out to the end of the runway. Number four engine was too hot. There was another delay while further checks were made into the power plant. Finally they were off, all 135,000 pounds. This was to have been a very long flight and every available bit of gasoline storage had been utilized. The plan on this day was once again to make a try for data near the top of the storm to verify and expand the startling information gained the preceding day. This plane had de-icer boots and they were not concerned about the rhyme ice that might tend to accumulate as it had the day before. First they were anxious to get certain data from a low level flight and to learn how effectively the radar could be used for navigating a large plane like the B-29 near the center of the storm. They went out at 10,000 feet again but continued to a point about 80 miles north of the storm at this elevation. By this time they had crossed about four of the spiral rain bands, the spiraling arms of the octopus. Here the plane turned downwind parallel to another of the rain bands and flew through the corridor to within a viewing distance of the eye. They gradually descended as the base of the middle level clouds lowered near the storm center. Leveling off at 7,500 feet they were in and out of clouds with horizontal visibility low much of the time. However there was scarcely a 30 second period when the crew were unable to see the sea surface below. Navigation at this stage was entirely by radar. Again the amazing thing was the lack of turbulence throughout this flight. This was a really big storm. They were flying at only 7,500 feet through one of the most violent sectors only 20 to 30 miles from the eye itself. Yet they encountered nothing that could be described as important as moderate turbulence. Simpson's early experience in hurricane flying in 1945 in a C-47 had been repeated. They were flying in comfort under conditions which gave them a command of all the information needed to report the position and intensity of the storm. Simpson remarked what a difference this is from the battering flights at 500 feet in the B-17s which have been standard operating procedure, SOP with the squadron until this season. The fascination of flying in comfort so near the storm center tempted them to continue the exploration of reconnaissance tactics somewhat longer. However there were many other important things to be done on this flight and there was no time to waste. They picked their way across one of the bands to an outer corridor and retreated to a point about 150 miles from the center and once again began to climb. Perhaps in the fascination of traveling so close to the eye in such comfort they had become complacent. In any case the events which followed in fast succession left no room for further complacency. They had climbed no higher than 12,000 feet when someone spoke on the interphone with a bit of a quiver in his voice. I smell gasoline. The hatches were opened and the plane vented hurriedly. Eastburn went off to investigate and returned with a worried look on his face. He spoke to the engineer who scrambled through the tube connecting the four and the aft sections of the plane on the double. It was not until after he returned about 20 minutes later that the rest of the crew learned that they had developed a very serious gasoline leak in one of the hoses connecting the bomb bay tanks. Nearly a thousand gallons of gasoline had been streamed through the bomb bay doors. The engineer had completed the repair satisfactorily and after a brief consultation with the plane commander the crew consented to go ahead with the project. We climbed to 20,000 feet said Simpson in his report. I was seated on the jump seat between the radar operator and the engineer looking through the tube. I saw from the tube a whisp of smoke drifting lazily toward the aft section. I do not recall my exact reaction but I am sure I was not a picture of composure when I called this to the engineer's attention. Nor did he stop to check with the plane commander before demonstrating that he also was a handyman with a fire extinguisher. The cause was a simple thing. As we climbed the engineer had turned on the cabin heater the insulation of which was a bit too thin in the tube so that the padding in the tube began to smolder. Perhaps this wasn't a very important item but it didn't contribute to the peace of mind of any of the crew, especially when it was remembered that only a few minutes earlier the bomb bay gas tank immediately beneath that tube had been leaking like a sieve. Again the plane commander checked with the crew. Again but with noticeable hesitation it was agreed that we would proceed with the project. Higher and higher we climbed. This time we reached the 40,000 feet mark with the base of the high zero stratus still above us so we leveled out, trimmed our tabs and set our course for the storm center. This time we were determined to descend from 40,000 feet in the eye to get a sounding there and then return home at low levels. We soon reached the base of the zero stratus and entered the clouds. The deisers were working. Again the data began to roll in along the same pattern as observed the previous day at least for several minutes until the interphone was filled with the excited voice of the right scanner with a spine tingling report to the commander. Black smoke and flame coming from number four. At the same time the plane began to throb, roll and yaw. In less time than it takes to say it the boys in the front compartment of this B29 became mature men. Wise, efficient stout-hearted men each with a job to do and each one doing it with calculated deliberateness yet speedily. There was grim determination here but no evidence of emotion. This magnificent tribute to top-notch training had an exhilarating effect upon me and tempered to some extent the abatement which I could not help feeling as a result of my helplessness in this situation and the fear which clutched my heart. We were lucky. The single carbon dioxide charge released by the engineer extinguished the fire in the engine. Number four was feathered and began to cool but our troubles were far from over. The engineer had manuals and technical orders spread out on all sides of him and was working feverishly to restore some power to number four as the indicated air speed dwindled from 168 to 166 to 164 or five hovering precariously above the deadly stall out at 163. We were only a few miles from north of the center by this time but no one had recorded the data. We were too busy worrying. The pilot was in the process of putting the plane into a long glide to increase the air speed when the left scanner claimed the interphone circuit with black smoke and flame coming from number one. This time we were in real trouble. However the engineer had anticipated further difficulty and was ready again. It was only a matter of seconds before the fire was out and some semblance of power had been returned to number one but we were still 500 miles from the nearest land and very near the center of a granddaddy of hurricanes so we declared an emergency and headed for MacDill Field. Altogether this was an ironical turn of affairs. An old plane had acted like a lady the day before and now a new one had frightened the crew with its mechanical troubles but the newer methods of hurricane hunting like the tricks of the trade had fortunately taken some of the danger out of the storm itself. Otherwise the mechanical troubles might have combined with the weather to spell disaster. End of chapter 11.