hurricane season is almost upon us again. and for those of us on the gulf coast and/or residents of post-katrina biloxi, that's an important time point.
our air base is home to the hurricane hunters. this whole time that we've been down here, i just assumed that these guys flew over hurricanes and got aerial information about the storms in the gulf of mexico. little did i know.
well, today, all of my fellow AEGD residents and I got a full tour of the hurricane hunters operation. it's pretty incredible. turns out their area of operations includes everywhere from basically the middle of the atlantic all the way west of hawaii. as far as i could tell, they are the only people in the world who do what they do.
well, what do they do you might ask? they fly their plane, WC-130J, straight through the wall of the hurricane, into the eye of the storm, straight out the other side, loop around and do it again, 3 or 4 times over. the average flight mission is about 16 hours front to back. the whole time they are relaying reconnaissance information back to towers of data on shore who make predictions/forecasts on the strength, speed, direction, ect of the approaching hurricane.
the Major who gave us a tour told some pretty amazing stories about flying straight into the heart of these storms.
then we embarrassed ourselves by taking a multitude of ridiculous pictures, as if we had a cool mission besides drilling and filling. now, that being said, our dental squadron motto is: if you can't bite..., you can't fight.
and we take that creed pretty seriously. we may all be captains, but we certainly aren't pilots...
anyway, enjoy some of the photos from the day.
oh yeah. and this morning while i was getting ready, i got william ready. ready for hansen planetarium and it's awesome laser shows. does anybody know, are they still doing Laser U2 and Laser Floyd? will is enjoying a little Laser Beck, with his feet kicked up and everything.
6 comments:
You should frame a couple of those pictures for the living room. They are incredible.
Love, Dad
that is pretty amazing that they do that. scary.
I'm impressed...right through the eye of the storm. Glad you documented this experience with photos. We don't have many of you in your Air Force fatiques.
peter: you look so good in your fatigues.
that picture is sorta awesome, like we're posing for an air force sitcom/reality show.
i also kinda feel like Guile from Street Fighter in that group shot.
I'm sorry to say that Will's preparation is in vain - the Hansen Planetarium closed several years ago. Now we have the Clark Planetarium at the Gateway-no laser shows that I know of. Just teach Will the names of the planets and he should be ready.
We are so excited to have you guys near us!
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