Leave strong storms to the pros
Col. Joseph B. Duckworth made that point - twice - on July 27, 1943, when he flew a single-engine, two-seat AT-6 (a World War II-era trainer considerably beefier than most contemporary general aviation aircraft) into a hurricane that was coming ashore near Houston, Texas. He did it the second time after the base's weather officer said he'd like to see a hurricane's eye from the air.
Duckworth wasn't one of those daredevil World War II flyboys with a kick the tires, light the fires, and head for the wild blue yonder attitude. He was the former airline pilot who taught the Army Air Forces how to fly on instruments and wrote the Army's first instrument-flying manual. He's credited with making flying into clouds routine for Army pilots of the early 1940s. Before Duckworth went to work, many military pilots and their commanders considered instrument flight to be near-suicide missions.
Duckworth's June 27, 1943, flights helped to persuade the U.S. Weather Bureau and the military to begin flying into typhoons and hurricanes, which were beating up Navy ships in the Pacific and slowing war production along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Data radioed back to forecasters from airplanes helped to improve predictions.
Today's hurricane fliers continue in the Duckworth tradition of knowing exactly what they are doing and being very careful about managing the risks of flying in extremely dangerous weather.
Today, the Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, based at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, flies C-130s into hurricanes, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) penetrates storms flying P-3s based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.
These four-engine turboprops bore directly into hurricanes, making maybe a half-dozen trips from one side of a storm through the eye to the other side during a typical mission that can last up to 10 hours. The Air Force concentrates on collecting data for the National Hurricane Center, while the NOAA focuses on scientific research, but also radios data back to forecasters. Depending on the mission, the planes fly in storms at altitudes ranging from around 1,500 feet to 14,000 feet.
NOAA also flies a Gulfstream IV jet over hundreds of square miles around hurricanes to measure the upper-air winds that steer them. It sometimes flies high, perhaps 40,000 feet, in the top of a hurricane - above the worst turbulence and heavy rain - for research.
Today's forecasts, thanks in part to data from hurricane flights and extensive news coverage, should ensure that no pilot is likely to stumble into one - even if he hasn't bothered to get a weather briefing. This doesn't mean, however, that you have nothing to worry about if you never think of venturing aloft without a weather briefing and would never fly into a storm.
If you live near the Gulf or Atlantic coasts, you should be thinking about what you're going to do with your airplane if a hurricane threatens to hit your airport. Now's the time to have a plan ready since the greatest number of hurricanes occur from mid-August through mid-October, although a storm can hit any time during the June 1 through November 30 hurricane season.
One option is to ensure your safety and let the insurance company take care of it if a storm wrecks your airplane on the ramp or smashes your hangar. Most airplane owners, however, probably would want a better plan.
The closer you are to the coast, the more you have to worry. Hurricanes draw their energy from warm ocean water and the extremely humid, warm air right above this water. As a storm begins moving ashore, it loses this source of energy. As it moves inland, its winds begin to weaken, usually quite rapidly. But you can't always count on this. When Hurricane Hugo's eye came ashore north of Charleston, South Carolina, in September 1989 and moved inland, its 74-mph (and stronger) hurricane-force winds continued 170 miles inland to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Probably the best way to keep your airplane safe from a hurricane is to fly it at least 200 or 300 miles ainland. Flying away, however, means you won't be around to ensure the safety of your home and family. Your plan would have to include provisions for them. If you do plan to fly your airplane to safety, don't focus on the forecast of when the hurricane is going to "hit." This refers to the time that the storm's eye - its center - should arrive. Winds could be too strong and ceilings and visibility too poor for safe flying a day before the eye arrives.
Beginning this year, the National Hurricane Center will be making public predictions of the locations of hurricane eyes up to five days in advance. But, you need to realize that the predicted storm location for five days ahead can be off by more than 300 miles.
The National Hurricane Center also publishes probabilities of the hurricane's center coming close enough to various locations for damaging winds to be felt. The Hurricane Center issues tables and also maps, which are updated every six hours, showing the probabilities. The map on page 63 shows the probabilities that were published for Hurricane Lili the evening before it hit Louisiana on October 3, 2002.
Maps like these need to be used with a certain amount of hurricane knowledge. Someone who didn't know better might wonder about moving an airplane away from Memphis, Tennessee, or even Detroit because they are in the area with up to a 45-percent chance of the center's passing nearby. But, Lili's 74-mph hurricane- force winds weren't felt any farther north than around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and all of its winds had weakened below 39 mph - tropical storm force - by the time the storm reached southern Arkansas.
If you want to keep your airplane safe in a hangar, you might want to get the opinion of a knowledgeable person on how well the hangar might stand up to hurricane winds.
If you decide to fly to safety, realize that the hurricane might miss; damaging winds might not hit your airport. Look at it this way: You are playing the odds - the probability forecasts are designed to help people do this.
The Lili probability map illustrates another danger from hurricanes. While Lili's winds did hardly any damage as it headed north from Arkansas and Tennessee, it did bring heavy rain, low ceilings, and poor visibility. Hurricanes often cause major flooding away from the coast. Even if you live 500 miles inland but use an airport near a river that's been known to flood, an approaching hurricane could be a good reason to move your airplane.
Since 1970, the biggest hurricane killer in the United States has been what meteorologists call fresh water flooding. Such floods from inland rivers and streams sent out of their banks by downpours from a dying hurricane account for a huge share of the property damage from hurricanes and tropical storms.
The Air Force Reserve and NOAA flight crews who fly into hurricanes encounter the worst that these storms can produce. But, even pilots who will never encounter hurricane-force winds can't ignore these dangerous visitors from the tropics.
Jack Williams is the weather editor of USAToday.com. An instrument-rated private pilot, he is the author of The USA Today Weather Book and co-author with Dr. Bob Sheets of Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth.
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