Penetrating the eye of Patricia

October 26, 2015 12:43 PM

You thought your last flight was rough? Watch these hurricane hunters fly directly into the eye of Patricia.
posted by pjern (13 comments total)

Lordy. I am a fearful flyer, and one method of self-calming that has worked for me is to visualize pilots enjoying the same details, the bumps, the ascent, the sounds, that make me afraid.
posted by feste at 1:03 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

What a tough plane! It takes a special sort of person to take a job like this, running towards what everyone else is running away from.

If you take a look at the instrument panel on the pilot (left-hand) side, you can see the on-board weather radar very clearly picking up the storm eye and the intensity around the eye wall, which is kind of neat. The guy in the middle seat holding on for dear life is the flight engineer; on older planes like the P-3 they're usually responsible for engine management during high workload times, so he's leaning forward to work the throttles, presumably to try to keep an even airspeed and prevent the props from overspeeding.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:04 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

At first I was surprised by all the screaming, crying, promises to god, etc. Until I realized that was all coming from me.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 1:19 PM on October 26, 2015 [15 favorites]

I have a meteorologist friend who flies in hurricanes out of Miami. He's remarkably nonchalant about it. It's uncomfortable but apparently not terrifying.

Normal airplanes, even big jetliners, do everything they can to avoid flying through even your basic thunderstorm. Deliberately flying into a hurricane seems insane.
posted by Nelson at 1:32 PM on October 26, 2015

I have some suggestions for titles of future articles on this theme:

Tropical storm Freddy gets Fingered.

Bend over Cyclone Bob.

Watch Hurricane Joseph take a barometer, deep and hard.

I know the poster here is quoting / paraphrasing the article, but the language is worth pointing out.
posted by idiopath at 1:43 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

My dad had a "flight surgeon" role for a time in the military and flew with the Hurricane Hunters out of Biloxi, Mississippi, for a couple seasons. He loved it. Definitely badass. We have an amazing photograph of Hurricane Elena taken from space on the wall at home – one of the hurricanes he flew into and the one we sheltered through on the ground. I remember we evacuated to our church's basement which was an officially designated shelter. I snuck out on a side porch to watch some crazy wind destruction – the roof of the nearby lumberyard flew far out of sight one direction...and then flew right back to land next to the structure! Then my mom found me and I caught hell. So happy to live in a place now that is far from hurricanes.
posted by amanda at 1:46 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Reading only the headline, I thought the linked site would be about Un chien andalou.
posted by Bromius at 2:47 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thanks to a trip to a AFJROTC leadership camp, I got to take a short, fun hop over the Gulf out of Biloxi with the Hurricane Hunters. Very nice folks and a loud and bumpy flight even in the best of conditions.
posted by RolandOfEld at 3:06 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

I like that their two NOAA P3's are named Miss Piggy and Kermit, complete with nose artwork from the Jim Henson people...
posted by jim in austin at 7:46 PM on October 26, 2015

I was sure when they broke through the wall the first time they were going to see Laputa hanging in the air in front of them.

I'm glad the camera guy didn't pan down and film the ankle-deep pool of vomit that I assume was sloshing around the cockpit.
posted by um at 9:21 PM on October 26, 2015

Where's the video?
posted by trif at 6:07 AM on October 27, 2015

Can't see it either, I assume it's on Facebook.
posted by Bangaioh at 6:11 AM on October 27, 2015

I couldn't see it on the linked sight either but I think this youtube video is the same footage.
posted by Mitheral at 11:58 AM on October 27, 2015