Why We Fly

Hurricanes guide a weatherman into the cockpit

As if on cue, the door opened, and Warren Madden walked in.

A private pilot who just earned an instrument rating, Madden is an on-air meteorologist for The Weather Channel. Although he doesn't staff TWC's Hurricane Center, he has unique knowledge of the storms--Madden's also a hurricane hunter in the U.S. Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Madden said he's razzed about the weather every time he walks into the flight school--unless conditions are picture perfect. "I never get credit for that," he said.

A native of Boston, Madden has been interested in the weather since he was 5. "One day the paper came and there was a story about a tornado outbreak in Texas. I thought, 'Wow, the wind could do that?' I went to the library and started reading about the weather, and it developed into a lifelong kind of thing."

First, he took a 10-year detour into computer science. An Air Force ROTC scholarship helped to pay for a computer science degree from MIT. Later, the Air Force sent him to Penn State for a bachelor's degree in meteorology. While stationed in Ohio he started hanging out at a Dayton TV station and then was hired as a meteorologist. He joined The Weather Channel 10 years ago; about two years later, he transferred his Air Force Reserve assignment to the hurricane hunters.

Always fascinated with maps, Madden's vision kept him out of Air Force navigator training. "I had never been overly interested in the pilot side of things, but when I started flying with the hurricane hunters, being in the cockpit and taking with air traffic controllers, I thought I should give it a try." He began as a virtual air traffic controller, participating in the Virtual Air Traffic Simulation network, then got interested in Microsoft Flight Simulator. He started flight training in March 2004 and earned his private pilot certificate that December. "It took me a while to get landings down, and I had a couple instructor changes...I wasn't one who went through it in 40 hours." He added an instrument rating in March 2006.

Being a meteorologist doesn't earn Madden any breaks with the weather. While building cross-country time to take the instrument rating checkride, clouds over the Smokies aborted several attempted trips to Knoxville, Tennessee; finally, he flew around the southwest side of the mountains to avoid terrain.

"Fortunately, all of my private flights have been much more benign than the flights I go on with the hurricane hunters." There he serves as weather officer, basically the mission director, aboard one of the squadron's 10 Lockheed WC-130Js. "I'm observing all the plane's weather instruments, and I'm in communication with the hurricane center. A typical mission will last anywhere between nine and 12 hours. Our plane isn't a particularly fast aircraft, but we wouldn't want it to be--it would be like taking a Porsche over a speed bump."

While Madden's meteorology background undoubtedly helped him during his flight training, his flying helps him as a meteorologist. "It's given me an interesting take on my weather job, on how the information affects people. As a pilot, the difference between partly cloudy and mostly cloudy makes a big difference."

Mike Collins is editor of AOPA Flight Training.