Plane crew goes where wind blows

BILOXI, Miss. - The plane tipped one way, then the other as the pilot guided the WC-130J Hercules through Hurricane Ike's pounding winds.

Every member of the cargo plane's crew peered at radar images of the storm surrounding them and then out the windows into the milky abyss.

The flight meteorologist acted as navigator, advising the pilot where to turn the plane in search of Hurricane Ike's eye.

The four jet-prop engines dug into the ever-increasing crosswind - the first clue that the crew was getting close.

Another turn and the 100-mph wind began to hit the plane flat on its left flank - straight up the length of the port-side wing. The headwind dropped to nearly nothing.

Without a clear eye - the hole in a hurricane's center around which clouds, wind and rain circle - visible on radar, finding the storm's center is not easy.

Since Ike's eye was ragged and ill-formed and invisible on radar, the crew members relied on the wind's speed and direction to guide them through the storm time and again.

The hard crosswind indicated that the plane was angled properly, headed straight into Ike's gut. Hurricanes spin counterclockwise, with the bands of wind tightening and strengthening near the storm's center.

Ike sprawled for hundreds of miles around the plane as the aircraft pushed through the rotating winds and finally into the storm's eye.

"We're going to earn our pay as hunters today," said Lt. Col. Malcolm Shannon, the plane's navigator.

Ike was never alone this week as it slowly churned across the Gulf of Mexico to the Texas coast. By early Friday, Ike moved to within 300 miles of landfall and the "Hurricane Hunters" launched even more planes intoit and stepped up their reports to every three hours from the storm's center. Ike made landfall early today.

WC-130J cargo planes out of Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi continually sliced through its 100-mph winds, collecting data needed by the National Hurricane Center to project the storm's path, timing and strength.

"The data we collect saves lives," said Maj. Chad Gibson, spokesman for the Hurricane Hunters of the Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron - the only unit of its kind in the nation. The hunters fly a specialized version of the C-130J aircraft, the newest version of the cargo plane called Hercules. Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville is known for the C-130, and most of the crew members received their flight training at the base.

Tail 5303 was one of several planes pushing through the storm Thursday as Texas officials made the call to evacuate millions of people from their coastal homes. The forecast that led to the evacuation order was largely based on data collected by the Hurricane Hunters.

The C-130 "is almost perfect for this mission," said Maj. Jeff Ragusa of Biloxi, a pilot. "You don't want to go too fast through a hurricane, you'll leave the wings behind."

Jets run the risk of getting waterlogged in the blowing rain. A C-130's propellers, however, help deflect the blowing water from the jet intake. Hurricane Hunter planes are retrofitted with external fuel tanks on the wings, allowing the planes to fly longer in the harsh climate.

"That's good and bad," Shannon joked.

Tail 5303 is less than a decade old, but the gray paint has been buffeted off the front edge of its wings and tail from years of hard hurricane flying.

As the plane turned to make its second pass through the heart of the storm, Col. Dave Konneker of Atlanta, a pilot, looked out the window and said, "I think we lost some more gray paint today."

The pilots briefly lost contact with the Houston tower and called for any nearby aircraft to relay a message that all was well.A Continental Airlines pilot answered as he cruised safely high above the storm.

"I don't know how you guys do it," he radioed to the crew after they identified themselves as Hurricane Hunters. "I wouldn't want to do it, but someone's got to, right?"

It brought a laugh to everyone in the flight deck.

In the back of the plane, flight meteorologists discussed the hurricane. It was neither growing more powerful, nor weakening.

Data from sensors dropped from the plane flooded the flight meteorologist's computer screen in the plane's belly as he sent text messages by satellite link to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Within a handful of hours, meteorologists across the nation broadcast the findings: Hurricane Ike remained a Category 2 storm and was running out of space to grow as it closed in on the Texas coast.

The storm was picking up more moisture every hour, feeding a powerful storm surge that brewed in the ocean below. The Gulf of Mexico, known for its sparkling blue water, churned black as it kicked up swells and 30-foot waves that boiled with foam and were clearly seen from the Hercules 10,000 feet above.

Early in the mission, the flight meteorologists found that the eye had an open side. It closed over the next eight hours, but the eye still was not clear or wellstructured. The crew compared its size to Hurricane Katrina and its disorganization to Hurricane Wilma. Capt. Kait McLaughlin and Maj. Eric Christensen, the two flight meteorologists on Tail No. 5303, speak of hurricanes like people, each with a different personality and a way of moving.

"It just doesn't look anything like we expected. But it could look totally different in a couple of hours," McLaughlin said. "This storm has a mind of its own."

Ike remained a strong hurricane through Friday. Like Hurricane Katrina three years earlier, the storm remained massive. Ike continued to have tropical storm winds in excess of 40 mph at its far edges, which spanned nearly all of the Gulf of Mexico.

But its eye remained muddied with clouds and moisture, not a clear hole as found in stronger storms. The winds in the storm's eye were those of a classic hurricane - almost nothing, well below 10 mph.

"It's kind of surprising," McLaughlin said. "The guys last night said they saw a definite eye. We don't see that today."

The picture painted by the Hurricane Hunters is available only by flying into the storm. Predictions of the storm's impact would be less accurate without that data from within the storm's walls. The National Hurricane Center estimates that its weather predictions are 30 percent more accurate because of the Hurricane Hunters.

"It gives meaning to what they're seeing on satellite imagery," Christensen said.

Gibson compared the work with diagnosing a tumor. An X-ray provides an image of the tumor, but you don't really know what's going on in there until you take a biopsy.

A hurricane is biopsied by dropping sensors called "dropsondes" from the plane that float to the raging ocean via a small parachute. The $550 piece of disposable equipment looks like a foot-long cardboard tube like those used to protect rolled-up paperwork or posters.

The sensors transmit data every few seconds to a bank of computers in the plane, painting a picture of the storm from top to bottom.

"It's the ultimate job if you're a professional meteorologist. It's the ultimate in storm chasing," Christensen said. "It's great to get out and see the weather, get in the middle of it."

Christensen is a meteorologist for the National Hurricane Center and a member of the 53rd as an Air Force reservist. He had just finished his shift at the controls in the belly of the plane and was taking a break as the planeturned to make another sweep through the storm.

Nearby, Staff Sgt. Shannon Smith prepared a dropsonde for deployment. The parachute is packed in one end and a metal sensor and transmitter extends from the other. The equipment measures wind speed, humidity, pressure, temperature and rainfall as it plummets.

Smith opened a large metal pipe rising out of the plane's floor and inserted the sensor. She returned to her computer console and clicked at the keyboard. Then, with the click of a button, the device shot out the bottom of the plane. The 53rd goes through $1 million in dropsondes each year.

Blue, red and green lines appeared on Smith's computer screen, marking the sensor's descent. The data were automatically detailed in a spreadsheet, which Smith collects and sends electronically to the flight meteorologist's computer station.

Christensen explained that while the mission is expensive, it is less expensive than evacuating more people from an area than necessary. The data he helps collect better pinpoint the storm's threat.

"It costs millions and millions and millions of dollars to go through all the preparations everyone is going through in Texas right now," he said over the growling C-130 engines and clang of deploying sensors. "The better the forecast, the more confident the forecast, the less money has to be spent on evacuation. We're able to save money by providing that confidence."

The mission stretched on for close to 10 hours, relatively short for a Hurricane Hunter. Theycan last for more than 12 hours in some storms.

As the sun began to set above the swirling storm, casting an angry orange haze, a call came in that a sailor far below had been swept overboard into the deadly surf. The crew members mapped out a search pattern, debating options and scrawling diagrams on a scratch pad as they built a plan.

"Yeah, we don't use them very often," said Lt. Col. Cordell Gray of Alaska, pointing to the scratch pad.

Gray, a navigator, punched coordinates into the navigation system, formalizing the plan.The plane circled, waiting for clearance to drop down to 2,000 feet, between the storm's edge south of Louisiana and the sea. Even that close to the churning waves, it was like looking for a bottle cork in Lake Ouachita.

Clouds closed in around the plane and the sea disappeared, ending their search. The plane climbed and pointed toward home.

"You can't search what you can't see," Konneker said.