Massive Melissa

[89th]

Start at 3:08... imagine flying through the clouds then finally entering the "eye". What a daunting sight.

BTW a few years ago I had the chance to tour the plane they use for this. I'll see if I can find photos. It's your standard military experience...mostly steel and uncomfortable, a few work stations, a place where they can "drop" probes into the storm to provide measurements, etc. I guess it's a good thing that the crew seemed to not even have a care that they fly their airplane into 300-mph hurricanes, I guess there's a little turbulence, but that's what seatbelts are for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/53rd_Weather_Reconnaissance_Squadron

Link to video

[89th]

Here are some pics from 2017. The one with all the decals is each hurricane that plane has flown into. The last pic shows one of the crew as well as the workstation and the tube where they drop the probes.

[jon-nyc]

@89th said in Massive Melissa:

If you look closely at the two decals that are 'backwards' (top row, left half), they are both for hurricanes that were in the southern hemisphere, so they spun the opposite direction.

[89th]

My man

[Horace]

DEI storms. Probably like half as windy, but because the first line on their storm resume is their minority orientation, they still get a sticker.