weather maps and to follow in detail the various weather changes which
might affect the flight. There were several special features that
required consideration. For example, because of the heavy gasoline loads
aboard the planes, it was necessary that the wind at Trepassey Bay be
within certain rather narrow limits, strong enough to enable them to get
off the water, but not so vigorous as to damage the hulls or cause them
to upset. Similarly, the planes would need the help of a moderate
westerly wind in order to reach the Azores on the first leg of the
flight, but an excessive wind would cause rough seas, making an
emergency landing extremely hazardous. Thus the problem was to select a
day on which reasonably favorable conditions would be encountered, and
to get the planes away as early as possible, to minimize the cost of
maintaining the fleet at their positions. After four days of careful
analysis and waiting, the Weather Bureau representative at Trepassey
issued the following weather outlook on the afternoon of May 16, 1919:
"Reports received indicate good conditions for flight over the western
part of the course as far as Destroyer No. 12 (about six hundred miles
out). Winds will be nearly parallel to the course and will yield actual
assistance of about twenty miles per hour at flying levels. Over the
course east of Destroyer No. 12 the winds, under the influence of the
Azores high, recently developed, will be light, but mostly from a
southwesterly direction. They will not yield any material assistance.
"Weather will be clear and fine from Trepassey to Destroyer No. 8 (about
four hundred miles out); partly cloudy thence to the Azores, with the
likelihood of occasional showers. Such showers, however, if they occur,
will be from clouds at low altitudes, and it should be possible to fly
above them.
"All in all, the conditions are as nearly favorable as they are likely
to be for some time."
It is a strange fact that the Weather Bureau forecaster on this flight
was Willis Gregg, who became Chief of the Weather Bureau in 1934, and
the Navy forecaster for the same flight was Ensign Francis
Reichelderfer, who became the Chief of the Bureau in 1938 after Gregg's
death.
In accordance with this advice, the three planes departed that evening
and flew the first leg of the flight almost uneventfully until the NC-1
and 3 attempted to land on the water near the Azores due to very low
clouds. Upon landing, although both crews were picked up by near-by
ships, heavy seas damaged the planes to the extent that they could not
continue the flight. Fortunately, however, the NC-4 was able to make a
safe landing in a sheltered bay, and after a week's delay, awaiting
favorable weather, continued from the Azores alone, arriving at Lisbon,
Portugal, on May 27.
No one at that time would have believed it possible for this situation
to be reversed. Instead of waiting to be sure that the weather is
favorable, planes now assigned to hurricane hunting wait to be sure the
weather out there somewhere is decidedly unfavorable before they take
off in that direction. But even in hurricane hunting the unexpected
happens and, as in the old days, the crews are intensively trained and
all precautions are taken so that they are not likely to be caught by
surprise in an emergency. In a period of years there are hundreds of
missions into dozens of tropical storms and, unfortunately, a few have
met with disaster. So the intensive training goes on without
interruption.
It seems strange but it is a fact that some men fly into hurricanes and
typhoons without seeing much of what is going on outside the plane. They
are too busy with their jobs to spend time looking around. In the first
year some of them learn more about these big storms before and after
missions than they do while flying. There are lists of reading matter to
be consulted, including books and papers on tropical storms, and there
are hints, suggestions, advice and warnings based on the experiences of
other men. Also, they read the reports that usually are gathered from
the members of other crews after their flights are finished. At the end
of the season, all these pieces of information may be assembled in a
squadron report, with recommendations. New men are expected to study
this material. Before each flight, the crew gathers in front of a large
map for a "briefing." Here an experienced weather officer shows them a
weather map, points out the location and movement of the storm center at
the last report, and indicates the route that seems most favorable for
an approach to the storm area and for the dash into its center.
Most of this training is aimed at the development of crews that will be
ready for any emergency--for the "unexpected," so far as that can be
realized. Their performance in recent years shows that this special
training enables them to survive most of the frightening experiences
which probably would be disastrous to crews on less spectacular types of
missions.
Usually there has been separate training for the men most concerned with
each of several jobs--weather, hurricane reconnaissance, engineering,
communications, navigation, photography, radar and maintenance. Before
departure, the ground maintenance men see that the plane is in good
working order and that the equipment is operating properly. At the
beginning of each season, for example, some of the Navy maintenance men
get the city to turn the fire hose at high pressure into the front of
the plane, to see how it reacts. The effects of torrential rains in high
winds of the storm are simulated in this manner. After every flight, the
plane needs very thorough examination. One of the troubles is that salt
air at high speed causes rapid corrosion. Salt may accumulate around the
engines. Also, severe turbulence causes damage to the plane.
After the take-off, the pilot and co-pilot can see what is ahead most of
the time, but for considerable intervals they are on instruments, or, as
they say in the Navy, "on the gauges." They see nothing or very little
of what is ahead of the plane in such cases and, the sea surface being
hidden from view, they are uncertain as to their altitude until the
weather officer, or aerologist, gives them a reading from the radar
altimeter. Sometimes in darkness a pilot has had the bright lights
turned on so that a flash of lightning will not leave him completely
blinded at a time when he must know what the instruments show because of
the violent turbulence that may be experienced when there is lightning.
Then, too, they always have in mind that there may suddenly be
torrential rain that will lower the cylinder head temperatures to a
dangerous level. They must accelerate and heat the engines without
traveling too fast. The landing gear is dropped to catch the wind. By
using a richer mixture to feed the engines, the cooling effect may be
lessened. It is always necessary to be on the alert. Altogether, it is
just as important, and oftentimes more so, for the men to see the gauges
than to see the weather.
Although the Air Force and Navy have different methods of flying into
tropical storms, there are certain dangers that are common to both
systems. Ahead of time, the pilots and others make a last-minute check
to see that the crew are prepared. They also check instruments, lights,
pitot and carbureter heat, safety belts, power settings, emergency
equipment, current for communications and radar, and other things. In
flight, the pilot does not use the throttle unnecessarily, but chiefly
to maintain air speed. Actually it may be said that there are three
pilots. The third one, sometimes known as "George," is the auto-pilot,
which may do most of the flying, except in rough weather and in landing
and take-off. Keeping the plane on course on a long flight would be very
tiring otherwise. The limits of air speed vary. In the B-29's, which
have been used generally for Air Force hunting, the limits are between
190 and 290 miles an hour, roughly. Air-speed readings may be affected
by heavy rain. Also, increased humidity of the air will result in an
increase in fuel consumption. There are numerous other items on the list
of things that may cause trouble. But the pilots are highly competent
and thoroughly trained and experienced before being put on the hurricane
detail.
The radio operator, of course, is fully occupied and seldom has much
time to see what is going on in the weather. He has two main troubles.
One is static. When it is bad, all he can do is send a message blind and
ask the ground station to wait. This may last for an hour or more.
Various devices are used to reduce static interference but without
complete success. As soon as the plane starts bouncing around, he has
difficulty keying the message, not only because his body is shaking and
swaying, but because it produces variations in the transmitter voltage
and, on very high frequency, a drop below a certain critical voltage is
likely to render the equipment inoperative.
To overcome a little of the trouble from turbulence, some radio
operators in the early days tried strapping one arm to the desk, but one
radio man, having just experienced a rough flight, said in his report
that his arm didn't do a very good job unless he was there! Besides, he
needed the arm to hold on with. More recently, it has been necessary to
carry two radio men, and in fact this has become standard practice in
most areas in the last year or two. It is very seldom that
communications fail entirely but a plane on a storm-hunting mission that
was out of contact with the ground station for much over an hour usually
returned to base. Some aircraft on storm missions carry extra receivers
and transmitters.
One navigator interviewed said that he is as busy as a one-armed paper
hanger. He keeps track of the position of the plane by dead reckoning
and by loran, which is "long range navigation," accomplished by
receiving pulsed signals from pairs of radio stations on coasts or
islands. It works well in the center of the storm, not so well
elsewhere; in some parts of the hurricane belt, loran coverage has been
poor. If it fails, the plane may go out to a point where the navigator
can get a good fix by loran and do the dead reckoning from the center to
this point.
Every few minutes, the navigator writes in his log a note about drift,
compass heading, indicated air speed and time, and when it is rough
bumps his head on the eye piece of the drift meter, the radar or
something else. He takes double drift readings to get the speed of the
strongest winds, figures the diameter of the eye and the exact location
of the aircraft while in the eye, and passes this information to the
weather officer or aerologist for his report. The duties are so numerous
that the Navy usually carries two navigators "to produce pinpoint
accuracy with limited celestial or electronic aids while being buffeted
by one hundred-knot winds." Two are required largely because of frequent
changes in heading and the nature of the winds in the Navy low-level
style of reconnaissance. The Air Force uses two on daily weather
reconnaissance and sometimes on storm missions.
In many respects, the weather officer, or "flight aerologist" as they
call him in the Navy, is the key man on the mission. The plane is out
for a series of weather reports and it is up to him to decide which is
the best way to get what he wants. Within the limits of operational
safety, his decisions are accepted. It is his job to keep track of the
weather in every detail. He has a complicated form containing many
columns in which he enters figures taken from code tables to fit the
various elements--flying conditions, time, location, kinds of clouds,
heights of cloud bases and tops, direction and distance of unusual
phenomena, rain, turbulence, temperature, pressure, altitude, and every
other conceivable detail that might be of use to the forecaster on
shore. If he put this in plain language, the message would be as long as
a man's arm and the radio operator might never get it off. There is an
international code in figures for this purpose which makes it possible
to put a very large amount of data in a brief message. And this is a
continuous operation. Hardly does the aerologist get one message into
the hands of the radio operator until he begins another one. It is his
job to keep the pilot informed of the correct altitude. The weatherman
is seated right out in front where the oncoming weather beats a terrific
hubbub against the Plexiglas.
The radar operator may be one of the navigators. He keeps his eye on the
scope. Many queer shapes come and go as the plane speeds along and the
radar man has to know how to interpret them. He keeps the weather
officer informed. Also, it may be his job to help the navigator guide
the pilot around places where turbulence is likely to be excessive. Now
and then, he or another crew member releases a dropsonde to get
temperature, pressure, and humidity in the air between the plane and the
sea.
The photographer has his troubles. Conditions are far from favorable and
oftentimes impossible for taking pictures. One of his important jobs,
and one that has been done exceedingly well by Navy photographers in the
squadron headquartered at Jacksonville, is to get photos of the sea
surface in winds of various forces from eight knots up to one hundred
thirty knots. These photos are extremely useful in estimating the force
of the wind by watching the effects on the sea.
In addition, there is an engineer. He looks after the overall operation
of the plane and watches the many instruments on the panel. Usually he
is a man of long experience who has worked up from crew chief. He
adjusts power to fit the fuel load. If an engine catches on fire, he
knows how to put it out. If a bail-out is imminent, he is the man on the
job. Sitting behind the second pilot, he has his restless eyes
concentrated on the mechanical equipment. All of these men on the plane
work as a team, any of them being ready to help somebody else in an
emergency, and alert and resourceful to take quick action when the
unexpected happens, and it often does.
The crews are usually organized as follows: The senior pilot is in
command--in the Navy he has the title of "Plane Commander" and the other
pilot is the "Co-Pilot." In the Air Force the man in charge is the
"Aircraft Commander" and his assistant is "Pilot." In any case, both of
these men are heavily engaged in keeping the aircraft under control when
the weather is rough. The pilots, together with two other men, the
engineer and the crew chief, keep the plane in the air, though these
latter two jobs may be combined, in which case the crew chief has an
assistant--a flight mechanic.
Under the crew chief, or crew captain, there is one exceedingly
important duty--watching the engines. On each side a man looks
constantly for signs of trouble--oil leaks, fire, or whatever. These two
men are sometimes called "scanners." White smoke or black smoke, as the
case may be, on issuing from an engine signals a dire emergency. It may
be only one or two minutes from incipient fire to explosion, and action
must be immediate to put the fire out or correct other troubles. It is a
very definite strain on the scanners to be alert every instant on a long
flight, and various members of the crew may be rotated on these jobs. On
routine daily reconnaissance in non-hurricane weather, the Air Force
flights are long and some of the men feel decided relief on taking a
hurricane mission, which is rougher but usually much shorter.
With this training and organization of the crews, most of the
emergencies are met quickly and efficiently. Now and then, the
unexpected happens, however, as is evident in the following instances.
In September, 1947, a number of missions by the Navy and Air Force had
secured data in Hurricane George and the big storm was headed ominously
toward Florida. An Air Force crew was in it on September 16 and had been
in trouble. There were gasoline leaks, several fires, and engines acting
up. They decided it was an emergency and set course for MacDill Field.
Everything went well until they approached the field for a landing.
There, in the middle of the runway, sat a big turkey buzzard. In the
twinkling of an eye, when they were only fifty feet away, the great bird
took off and smashed into the leading edge of the right wing. The impact
made a sizable dent and the wing dipped. After six tries, the pilot
skillfully got the plane down without an accident but the crew was more
upset by this bird than by the average hurricane.
Sometimes the unexpected leads to disaster. One of the most unfortunate
of these incidents occurred at Bermuda in 1949. There was a report of a
disturbance in the western Caribbean on November 3. It was late in the
season, but a few very bad hurricanes have struck in this region in
November, so the forecasters at Miami asked for reconnaissance and the
request was passed to the Air Force at Kindley Field, in Bermuda. It was
afternoon when the message came. A B-29 with a crew of thirteen men was
cleared for a flight through the storm area and thence to Ramey Air
Force Base, in Puerto Rico, where they were to spend the night.
The plane took off at 6:17 P.M., Bermuda time, climbed to ten thousand
feet and leveled off. Almost immediately the crew saw an oil leak in the
No. 1 engine and it was feathered. The radio operator got in touch with
the tower and airways and the aircraft commander prepared to return to
the field. The pilot brought the plane over the island and reported at
four thousand feet, descending. But just at that time a Pan American
Stratocruiser was cleared to land. The B-29 circled and reported at one
thousand five hundred feet at a distance of seven miles west of the
island. Next the plane was four miles out, coming straight in at one
thousand feet and was cleared to land on Runway 12.
There was a gusty cross wind and there were scattered clouds at one
thousand feet. The plane then reported that it would pass over at one
thousand feet and get lined up, but almost immediately said to disregard
the last message. One-half mile away, the flaps were raised, the landing
gear was let down, and power was applied on the three remaining engines.
The plane made a left turn which became steeper and altitude was lost
rapidly until the left wing hit the water. This was a quarter of a mile
offshore. Fire broke out as the plane hit the water and rescue boats
rushed to the scene. Only three men escaped, two of them miraculously
through a hole in the fuselage, as was determined by a Bermuda diver who
went down sixty feet in the water to examine the wreckage. The other
man, captain of the aircraft, was pulled out but died later in the
hospital. It was the two radar men who were fortunately in a position to
get out through the hole in the fuselage and both survived.
In this incident at Bermuda the plane was not being affected by a storm.
It is an amazing fact, in consideration of the very large number of
weather missions flown by the Air Force after World War II, that their
first plane to be lost while on reconnaissance in a tropical storm was
in 1952. On November 1, a B-29 left Guam to fly into a typhoon called
Wilma. The crew of the superfort was instructed to penetrate the storm,
report by radio, land at Clark Field in the Philippines, and be prepared
to fly through the typhoon again on the following morning. The same day,
however, radio contact was lost. Seventeen rescue planes and numerous
surface vessels searched the typhoon-torn waters near Samar Island for
survivors without success. Natives on the island of Leyte reported that
a four-engined plane was seen flying low in that vicinity but the report
could not be verified.
The squadron to which this plane was assigned had made more than five
hundred reconnaissance flights into typhoons between June 1, 1947, and
the date on which it was lost.
Lieutenant A. N. Fowler, an experienced Navy pilot, was the man who said
that a hurricane flight was like going over Niagara Falls in a telephone
booth. Describing one of his most dangerous trips, he told a
newspaperman:
"I have seen the hurricane-swept sea on many occasions, but it never
fails to impress me in exactly the same way. It would be sheer turmoil,
like a furious blizzard. While experiencing the jarring turbulence, the
heat and drumming of torrential rain which seeps in by the gallon and
tastes salty, the inside of a hurricane can be like a bad dream. Like
having been swallowed by an epileptic whale, or going over Niagara Falls
in a telephone booth."
On a less serious note but illustrative of the unexpected, there is the
tale of the Navy crew and the hot water. They took off in a Privateer to
fly into the center of a hurricane, each member of the crew having been
assigned certain specific duties, as is always the case on these
missions. The radar operator, among other jobs, was given the coffee
detail. After a considerable period of moderate to heavy turbulence,
with heavy rain leaking into the plane until everybody was thoroughly
soaked, they broke into the clear in the eye of the hurricane, about
twenty-five miles in diameter. The weather officer was busy with the
coding of his latest observation, the radio operator was sending two
messages that had accumulated, and the navigator was figuring the
position of the eye and computing a double drift for wind. The co-pilot
had the controls and was flying around the eye, preparatory to a descent
as soon as the coffee had gone around.
The pilot called for coffee. The radar man dragged out two jugs, both
still hot, and began to pour. He threw the first cupful under his seat
and poured one from the other jug. Then he saw that he had brought two
jugs of hot water and no coffee. "What the heck!" exclaimed the weather
officer. "Why, you poor ----!" The navigator's words were scathing. He
said that, according to the Bible, Noah was tossed overboard for less
reason.
From the very beginning of reconnaissance, these missions have been
co-ordinated according to instructions issued by a trio who serve on the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and also on the Air Co-ordinating Committee. Today
the men are Brigadier General Thomas Moorman of the Air Force, Captain
J. C. S. McKillip of the Navy, and Dr. Francis W. Reichelderfer, Chief
of the Weather Bureau. There have been no serious accidents on the
Atlantic side when planes actually were in hurricanes and there was no
confusion in assigning planes until September, 1947. The men on the
Committee at that time were Brigadier General Donald Yates and Captain
H. T. Orville, in addition to Dr. Reichelderfer. They co-ordinated many
operations in addition to hurricane reconnaissance and all had had long
experience in aviation. Dr. Reichelderfer was formerly in charge of
weather operations in the Navy, after long experience at sea and in the
air. He was weather officer for Hindenberg on his flight around the
world in a dirigible.
On September 18, 1947, the committee was surprised and alarmed by a
report of reconnaissance. An Air Force plane out of Bermuda flew into a
big hurricane which was moving west-northwest to the south of Bermuda
and, after a rough time in the outer parts of the storm, finally found
its way into the eye. Immediately they saw a Navy Privateer flying
around in the center, also on reconnaissance, and they got right out of
the eye and returned to base. There they made an official protest that
there is not sufficient room for two planes in the center of the same
hurricane. New instructions for co-ordination were issued immediately to
all concerned. It is not surprising that this has happened on at least
two other occasions, once with two Air Force planes and on another
occasion with a commercial airliner.