NPR recently featured a story on the Air Force Reserve 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, better known as the Hurricane Hunters. The 10 aircraft that comprise the squadron derive their nickname from a 1943 incident in which a pilot-trainer, responding to a bar bet, flew into a Category 1 hurricane near Galveston, Texas.
The squadron’s WC-130J aircraft, based at Keesler Air Force Base outside Biloxi, Miss., have not been replaced since 1999. Their mission is to fly multiple times directly into a storm — for example, into the eye of a hurricane.
Not surprisingly, over the decades these planes have been battered by high winds and hailstorms. Yet they perform a unique function. Although satellites can detect cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes, only aircraft can measure accurate wind speed and directional data, critical tools for forecasters to gauge the size of storms and when and where they will make landfall.
The proliferation of the storms in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as in the Gulf of Mexico have sorely stressed the squadron and its 100 pilots and aircrews, half of whom are active Air Force Reservists and the other half part-time Reserve. Their patrols have risen from six to 10 months annually, and they range........