He is working towards becoming an aircraft commander, and will be the pilot during today' s eye penetrations. This is his second year flying hurricanes. We work well together, having just completed a three month-long winter storm project in Maine.Ĭo-pilot is Gerry McKim, a relative newcomer to hurricane flying, but a Navy P-3 pilot for 20 years before coming to NOAA. My pre-flight tension wanes just a bit, seeing him in the cockpit, in charge. There is no better pilot in the business. Lowell Genzlinger is Aircraft Commander, a veteran of 249 hurricane eye penetrations. I step into the cockpit and greet the cockpit crew. My preliminary check shows everything working as expected, so I proceed with my next task-checking with each crew member to determine their state of readiness. With practiced efficiency, I power on the computer monitors, radar displays, and scientific instrumentation located at my station, then sit down and query the on-board main computer about the status of each of the approximately 50 meteorological instruments we carry. Sitting down, I dig out the essential items for today's flight-aviation charts, flight plan, instrument calibration tables, today's passenger roster. I cut through the crowd and make my way to the flight director's station, located just behind the cockpit. Five scientists from NOAA's Hurricane Research Division huddle together, pointing at charts spread out over a table, and talk intently about today's mission-the Hurricane Energetics Experiment, designed to study the mechanisms responsible for hurricane intensification. Our electronic engineers stride about, powering up computers, checking scientific instruments, and tinkering with delicate circuit boards. The interior of the aircraft buzzes with activity. I climb the ladder and step into one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) P-3 Orion 'Hurricane Hunter' aircraft-NOAA 42, affectionately called 'The Princess', my partner in many memorable missions. The flight engineers and maintenance crew are already hard at work, fueling the airplane and completing their pre-flight inspections. I look to the northeast, scanning the sky for signs of Hurricane Hugo's outer cloud bands, but see only the puffy fair weather cumulus clouds typical of a tropical summer morning. The hot tropical sun beats down on me as I cross the tarmac at Barbados's Grantly Adams field. Jeff Masters - Director of Meteorology, Weather Underground Part 1: Pre-flight I served as flight meteorologist on that flight, and feel fortunate indeed to be able to tell the story. The mission remains the most harrowing flight ever conducted by the NOAA hurricane hunters. The crew of the airplane were the first people to encounter the mighty hurricane-and very nearly became its first victims. In September of 1989, a NOAA hurricane hunter airplane intercepted Hurricane Hugo as it approached the Caribbean islands, just before Hugo's destructive rampage through the Caribbean and South Carolina.

Bill boss meteorologist