“there is not sufficient room for two airplanes in the eye of the same hurricane.” —report to joint chiefs of staff
twenty-five years before men began flying into hurricanes, it was the main purpose of the aviator to keep out of storms of all kinds. if he ventured any distance out over the ocean in a “heavier-than-air” machine, he expected to see ships guarding the route, to pick him up if he fell in the water. in 1919, when the navy had planes ready to fly across the atlantic, they had a “fleet” of ten destroyers and five battleships stationed along the line of flight from trepassey bay, newfoundland, to portugal via the azores, to furnish weather reports that would help the pilot to avoid headwinds, stormy weather and rough seas, and to take part in rescue operations in case of accident.
three airplanes, the nc-1, 3 and 4, used in this flight were designed and built through the joint efforts of the navy and the curtiss aeroplane company. these four-engined seaplanes, the largest built up to that time, exceeded the present-day douglas dc-3 airplane in size and weight. although 203 sufficient fuel could be carried for a sixteen-hour flight, cruising airspeed was but eighty miles an hour. during the winter months of 1918 to 1919, plans were made by the navy, in co-operation with the weather bureau, for securing as complete and widely distributed weather reports as possible for the atlantic area immediately prior to and during the flight. through international co-operation, observations were available from iceland, western europe, canada, and bermuda.
from this network of reports, it was possible to draw fairly complete 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 204 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 205 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 206 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 207 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 208 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 209 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.
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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 211 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 212 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 213 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 214 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 215 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.
in 1953 there was another bad accident, but not directly in a hurricane area. it resulted from a moderate hurricane named dolly, which came from the vicinity of puerto rico on september 8 and moved toward bermuda with increasing intensity. on the tenth, aircraft in the center estimated the highest winds at more than one hundred miles an hour, but on the eleventh it weakened and passed directly over bermuda. there were strong gales at bermuda, although the 216 storm was diminishing in force so fast that no serious damage resulted.
on the tenth an air force plane from bermuda flew into the hurricane. a weather bureau research man, robert simpson, went along to follow up on some studies he was making of the circulation at high levels in tropical storms. he reported:
“dolly was an immature storm with most of the cloudiness concentrated in the northern sector. on the south and west sides, clouds rose only to around seven or eight thousand feet near the eye, except along the spiral rain bands which encircled the eye. the plane first investigated conditions at one thousand five hundred feet in the eye, where it was observed that there was a huge mound of cloud near the center with a moat or cloudless area which encircled this central cloud and separated it from the walls of the eye.”
after this low-level exploration, the plane climbed to 29,500 feet, completing a spiral sounding in the eye. at this elevation or slightly lower, a complete navigation of the storm area was made, with dropsondes being released in strategic quarters, pressure and temperature gradients being measured along the track of the plane. there were two outstanding things observed during this flight at high levels: first, the sheer beauty of the storm itself, which could be viewed in excellent perspective, insofar as the cloud forms were geared to the wind circulations over hundreds of miles surrounding the eye. the only obstructions to vision at this elevation were the tall cloud walls which rose from the northern side of the eye. the second was a strong cyclonic circulation near thirty thousand feet over the eye itself which was surprising. most theorists had figured that the cyclonic circulation would cease at high altitudes and possibly at very high levels become anticyclonic.
simpson continued:
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“by the time the plane had returned to bermuda it was evident that dolly was bearing down upon the island itself and that everything had to be evacuated. all of the planes were flown out to the mainland and the buildings battened down for the big blow. i spent most of the time in the weather station with my eyes glued to the radar scope. as the storm approached, and the winds rose, one rain band after another passed over the station, each with evidence of a little more curvature than the preceding band.
“finally, the scope indicated a circle with a five-mile area free of any radar echoes. it was bearing down directly upon kindley field. oddly enough the pressure had not begun to fall and the wind was holding steady. another odd thing was that during the reconnaissance the eye had been twenty-five miles in diameter. however, this eye was only four to five miles in diameter. the eye arrived, the rain stopped and then resumed as the eye passed over the station, yet the pressure only leveled off briefly and the wind only subsided slightly without shifting. we had been tricked! this was not the real mccoy, it was a false eye. subsequently, two other false eyes appeared on the radar scope and we had about decided that the storm had no organized central circulation left when the real thing finally showed up on the scope, still twenty-five miles in diameter.”
in the reconnaissance of hurricane dolly, many feet of radar pictures were made of the spiral bands of the storm. when it became clear that all planes would have to be flown to the mainland because of the approach of dolly to bermuda, the film pack used on the reconnaissance was left in the plane so that additional pictures could be made on the flight back to the mainland. not only was this done, but also an additional eye dropsonde was obtained during the trip to the mainland. it was agreed that as soon as the plane returned 218 to bermuda after the storm had passed, the film and additional records would be mailed to washington.
on its flight from the mainland while returning to bermuda, the plane exploded in mid-air 150 miles off the coast, near savannah, georgia. it had the records, the radar film, the dropsondes taken in the eye, and other data. in this case, the no. 4 engine had “run away,” throwing its prop, which struck engine no. 3, and the latter exploded. the plane fell out of control. eight of the crew were rescued but none of the records or data of the reconnaissance was saved. this plane, however, was not on a storm mission at the time.
the unexpected appearance of a small eye on the radar scope is not uncommon. the navy’s instruction to its crews says: “during the final minutes of the run-in, radar may prove to be more of a hindrance than a help. there can be a number of open spots close to the true eye which might appear as eyes on the radar screen. you should not chase these false eyes!”
out in the pacific, the typhoon chasers say: “false eyes are often found in weak storms and care must be taken not to confuse them with the true eye of the typhoon. on the radar scope they may present an appearance much like the true eye but will not remain on the scope for any length of time. by continually scanning the suspected eye with several sweeps, the radar observer will see that the false eyes are surrounded by fuzzy cloud formations rather than a heavy ring of cloud characteristic of the eye.”
when hurricane carol of 1954 was approaching the new england coast, the last penetration was made by a navy plane with lieutenant commander r. w. westover as pilot and lieutenant c. w. hines as co-pilot. on the way into the storm circulation, hines was telling westover about his family’s experience in the new england hurricane of 1938. 219 the family residence was on cape god. it was blown into the water and drifted until it lodged against a bridge, obstructing navigation. finally, it was necessary to dynamite the wrecked house to clear the channel. the hines family rebuilt their home and took out hurricane insurance. they carried the insurance until june 1, 1954, and then let it lapse.
as the recco plane flew into the center of carol on august 30, the crew was watching a moore-mccormack ship in the stormy seas below and sympathizing with the people on board who were suffering such rotten weather, but hines was saving his sympathy for his family on cape cod. he was sure that carol was going to blow their home into the water again, and afterward he learned that it did.
although carol of 1954 received a great deal of publicity because of death and destruction in new england, westover, who also flew into hurricane carol of 1953, says that it was a much more violent hurricane than the one in 1954. the first carol was so bad that only one low-level penetration was attempted. his crew recorded pressure 929 millibars in the center—about 26.80 inches—and they recorded 87?° drift. but fortunately the earlier carol remained out at sea throughout its course.
hurricane hazel, later in 1954, gave another navy pilot, lieutenant maxey p. watson, an experience of the same kind that lieutenant hines had. the storm was approaching the coast of south carolina when watson flew his plane into it and he saw the center passing inland not far from the town of conway, which was his home.
hazel was responsible for other unexpected incidents here and there during its ravages from the caribbean to the northeastern part of the united states. one case was on a navy plane commanded by lieutenant g. j. rehe. watson was the pilot on this trip, also. they took off from puerto 220 rico and flew into the storm as it was turning northward and passing out of the caribbean.
up to that time, hazel was not much of a storm. westover flew into it after it passed grenada and found that it was not a well-organized cyclone. rehe had gone into it on the first penetration and reported winds of eighty-five knots. westover found the area almost cloudless but ninety-knot winds in one area. however, after its northward motion began, it was a very dangerous wind system, which was responsible for the only injury to a navy crewman in their many flights into this particular hurricane.
because of the severe turbulence that had developed quickly in hazel, all the crew members on this flight were fastened in with safety belts, as is usual in such cases, but the photographer wanted to get up and take a picture. so he got out of his safety belt and had another crew member unfasten himself and hold him while he took the picture. in the sudden very violent turbulence, both were thrown against the overhead. on his descent, the photographer caught his arm between the cables and the fuselage and broke his shoulder blade. the other crewman was knocked unconscious.
out in the pacific, an air force pilot, captain leo s. bielinski, had an experience which induced him to go to great lengths of experiment and ingenuity in an effort to find an easier way to track typhoons and hurricanes. it was in may, 1950, when a typhoon called doris was growing to maturity while near the island of truk and showed signs of changing its path, threatening the base at guam. on may 8, an rb-29, under the command of captain cunningham, was sent out to penetrate the storm. bielinski went along.
at that time leo had a fine wrist watch in which he took much pride. a man in uniform has few things that are different from the other men, but leo secured an expression of 221 individuality through a wrist watch. he bought a very special one for a hundred dollars and admits that he frequently looked at it when he really didn’t care what time it was.
on this first trip into doris, everything went smoothly. the crew members were instructed to land at iwo jima, when another plane would take over. but before landing they found that the hydraulic system needed repairs. cunningham brought the plane down skillfully and they worked all night making repairs with parts salvaged from another plane on the field. the plans were changed and they were assigned to the next mission. the next morning they were airborne again for another penetration. this confirmed the northwest movement of doris, which would take the most violent winds away from guam, so they returned to iwo jima, well worn-out by two successive flights and thinking about a little rest, when commander cunningham received the following message: “unable to get relief; request you make afternoon fix.” so the same crew turned around and started the third mission. the other two flights into this storm had been uneventful, they were tired, and leo didn’t bother to fasten his safety belt.
wham! suddenly he found himself floating in the air around the cockpit. before he could get his bearings, he was thrown violently against a bulkhead and slowly came to the realization that the bits of junk dangling in his face were the remains of his hundred-dollar wrist watch. this bothered bielinski more than a broken arm or a twisted vertebrae. he started studying typhoons with a determination to find a better way to keep track of them. the results are described in chapter 17.
in other ways the unexpected can be serious. one experience is cited by captain ed vrable, who was navigator on a 222 flight into a hurricane in 1953. after a careful approach, the aircraft suddenly popped into the eye, but it was only about eight miles in diameter. it was not easy to circle a superfortress in this small eye. at one point, the turning arc was a little too broad and the aircraft edged out into the winds on the border. it was instantly tossed back into the eye, almost upside down, and he had the worst fright of his career in the reconnaissance business. but the pilots made a skillful descent until they managed to get the plane into the correct attitude and finished the flight.
in hurricane edna, in 1954, a crew of hunters in a wb-29, in command of captain charles c. whitney, had an unexpected duty. they had spent part of the morning and the afternoon of september 14 in the eye of the hurricane. they flew in tight little circles, dodging the wing-shuddering winds on the periphery. because the weather bureau forecasters were afraid of a repetition of a sudden speed-up like that of hurricane carol two weeks before, they had asked for a continuous watch. captain whitney and his crew were in there for nine hours.
and then, with gas getting low, they ran into the unexpected. some eleven hours after take-off from bermuda, the aircraft picked up a radio message that the nantucket lightship, torn from her moorings by terrific winds, was adrift and at edna’s mercy. the wb-29 plunged into 145-mile-an-hour winds in search of the vessel.
picking up the lightship by radar, the weather plane shepherded the hopelessly lost ship, remaining overhead until a coast guard rescue plane arrived.
waves seventy feet high seemed to toss the stricken vessel into the air to meet the low-flying aircraft pressed down by edna’s raging winds. it felt, the crew said later, as if the plane were dancing on her tail.
with the arrival of the relief plane, the wb-29 turned landward. after sixteen hours in the air, and with the gas gauge hitting the low side of the dial, the weather plane made a landing at dover, delaware.
according to the air force, “this flight was one of the most dramatic missions in peacetime air force history.”
