The storm Thursday night with the winds tearing things up and even sinking a tourist duck boat on Table Rock lake south of us killing 17 people when it sank in 80 feet of water reminded me of a story I experienced long ago.
It was 1965 and I was on a flight somewhere in the Pacific ocean. Our job was to report weather to the 7th fleet and help ships avoid getting caught in the storm area. Part of that flight was to penetrate the eye of the typhoon and take measurements in the eye. I do not know why that was important, but the navy still does that with hurricanes in the Atlantic and perhaps the Pacific. It was a massive storm 250 miles across. We usually flew at 1500 feet and on occasion at 3000 feet. I do not know which we were at that day. A typhoon or a hurricane is horrific in the outside winds, but calm in the eye. The outer winds were 138 miles per hour (120 nautical miles per hour). We were strapped into the seats at the radar consoles before we went into the typhoon. As we went into the outer winds the plane dropped nearly 1000 feet in a second, enough to lift a person up and smash him against the ceiling and at another point we went up at the same rate before entering the eye and that was just as scary. All the way into the eye was horrific with the turbulence, far worse than anything you would experience in a commercial jet aircraft. Once in the eye, all I could think about was we had to go through the same thing on the way out.
The good news is that I am here writing this story today and I have to say I would not do that again, but I had no choice back then and had no idea anything like that would ever happen. That was the only time I remember having to do that. We usually would just track the typhoons and relay the information to the 7th fleet weather service.
It was 1965 and I was on a flight somewhere in the Pacific ocean. Our job was to report weather to the 7th fleet and help ships avoid getting caught in the storm area. Part of that flight was to penetrate the eye of the typhoon and take measurements in the eye. I do not know why that was important, but the navy still does that with hurricanes in the Atlantic and perhaps the Pacific. It was a massive storm 250 miles across. We usually flew at 1500 feet and on occasion at 3000 feet. I do not know which we were at that day. A typhoon or a hurricane is horrific in the outside winds, but calm in the eye. The outer winds were 138 miles per hour (120 nautical miles per hour). We were strapped into the seats at the radar consoles before we went into the typhoon. As we went into the outer winds the plane dropped nearly 1000 feet in a second, enough to lift a person up and smash him against the ceiling and at another point we went up at the same rate before entering the eye and that was just as scary. All the way into the eye was horrific with the turbulence, far worse than anything you would experience in a commercial jet aircraft. Once in the eye, all I could think about was we had to go through the same thing on the way out.
The good news is that I am here writing this story today and I have to say I would not do that again, but I had no choice back then and had no idea anything like that would ever happen. That was the only time I remember having to do that. We usually would just track the typhoons and relay the information to the 7th fleet weather service.
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