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Hurricane's Eye
Thu Aug 28, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Penetrations into a hurricane's eye are well-planned missions flown by expert crews known as
Hurricane Hunters. But the first intentional flight into an eye sixty years ago was a
spur-of-the-moment decision Actually, it was a bet! Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather
Notebook.
When a hurricane suddenly formed off the Texas coast on July 25, 1943, the military command at
Bryan Field's flight-instruction school ordered their AT-6 "Texan" Trainer fleet moved farther
north.
British pilots, training with the Americans, ridiculed the perceived frailty of the training
aircraft. However, few of them had ever experienced a hurricane's fury.
Finally, US Air Corps lead instructor Colonel Joseph Duckworth had had enough of the ribbing,
and bet he could fly his "Texan" into the storm and back. Looking across the breakfast table,
he volunteered Lieutenant Ralph O'Hair as his navigator for the unsanctioned flight.
They entered the hurricane at between four and nine thousand feet. Flying through the dark
storm-wall, they fought torrential rain, plus turbulent updrafts and downdrafts, which O'Hair
described as "being tossed about like a stick in a dog's mouth."
Then, suddenly, beyond a showery curtain of towering, dark clouds, brightness filled the sky.
They had broken into the storm's eye.
O'Hair described the eye as shaped like a leaning cone, some nine or ten miles across. After
circling they plunged again into the ominous eyewall.
Back at Bryan Field, weather officer Lieutenant William Jones-Burdick asked if he could be
flown into the storm, to make visual observations. Replacing O'Hair, Jones-Burdick flew off
with Duckworth for another wild ride.
Thanks to our contributing writer, meteorologist Keith Heidorn. We are a production of The
Mount Washington Observatory, and receive support from Subaru of America and The National
Science Foundation.
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