Hurricane Hunter begins career as all hail breaks loose

Published June 17, 2015
By Master Sgt. Brian Lamar
403rd Wing Public Affairs

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- (This article is the second piece of a series featuring personal encounters of Air Force Reservists of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron "Hurricane Hunters". The Hurricane Hunters are the only Department of Defense organization who routinely fly into hurricanes to collect weather data for the National Hurricane Center's tropical cyclone forecasts.)

Turbulent side winds from off the left wing of the WC-130J repeatedly attempted to flip the belly of the plane toward the sky and send it to the churning waters below.

Loud thuds broke the normal continuous hum of the four turbo prop engines, which grew into a steady roar as softball-sized hail began slamming into the aircraft at 200 miles per hour, which shattered part of the pilot's windscreen and battered the propellers. This was Lt. Col. Brian Schroeder's second flight of his career as the solo aerial reconnaissance weather office with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron Hurricane Hunters.

The Hurricane Hunters were completing a flight into Hurricane Paloma in November 2008 where storms that late in the year produce a lot of hail.

"I had a quite a few storms under my belt while training to be an ARWO with no issues, and then I ran into Paloma," he explained. Hurricane Paloma crossed the Caribbean with the majority of the damaged inflicted to the Cayman Islands and Cuba.

The scary part of his flight came on slowly, he said. Schroeder became aware that things were getting rough after a couple incidents of intense turbulence with lightning transforming the dark night sky to a rapid burning white series of explosions visible through the aircraft's small rectangular windows.

"I was thinking that this was going to be okay, and I was going to get a taste of a little bit of roughness," said Schroeder. "I was unprepared mentally for what we were about to experience.

"Sometimes it gets real nasty in there and you just have to roll with what the storm throws at you and do the best job you can," said the meteorologist.

Paloma lost some steam after skirting by Jamaica and reacting with the topography of the island, so the first few passes weren't alarming, Schroeder said.

After initial passes through the eye, Schroeder noticed the aircraft was getting knocked around a little bit. As the storm increased in intensity, more severe turbulence began.

"Within an hour, a minimal storm, which was barely a Category I hurricane, had turned into a monster Category III," said Schroeder. "We were seeing tons of lightning and turbulence, and the winds were increasing every second."

According to decades of previously documented hurricane hunting flights, some systems go through a transformation of rapid intensification.

"The phenomenon Schroeder described is called bombogenesis, commonly referred to as bombing out," explained Dennis Feltgen, public affairs manager for the National Hurricane Center. "It occurs when conditions are favorable and facilitate the rapid strengthening of a system."

That type of turbulence was a new experience for Schroeder.

"We kept getting strong patches of wind from the side," he said. "I felt like a tennis ball on a string being batted sideways."

Schroeder and the rest of the aircrew continued gathering data for the hurricane center forecasters and piloting the aircraft through the storm.

"That was the first time I had felt that kind of intensity," Schroeder said. "Working on the computer to get all that stuff together is really a challenge when you are trying to look at the computer screens and you are getting jostled around like that."

As the crew continued to fly, Schroeder heard a noise that sounded like someone dumping gravel on the plane.

"When the hail hit, it sounded like making a frozen drink in a blender," he said. "You could hear it hit the prop, get shredded, and then you could hear the ice shrapnel hit the airplane all over.

"When you are in a loud airplane and you have a noise-cancelling headset on and you can still hear the ice hitting the leading edges of the aircraft, breaking up and scraping all down the aircraft, then you know you have a big issue," he explained.

The mission continued until one of the pilots noticed that the hailstones were cracking the glass in the plane's cockpit and the alarm system signaled the damage.

"Once we saw that, we called to the hurricane center and informed them we had a cracked windscreen and needed to land. At that point, they determined that they had all the data they needed," said Schroeder.

The battered plane lumbered back to its starting point in Barbados where they had been operating out of due to a previous storm that forced them to evacuate from St. Croix. The team surveyed the damage.

"When we landed, I noticed that there wasn't any paint left on a majority of the plane and it was all beat up," Schroeder recalled. "One of the props needed to be replaced. The windscreen had to be replaced. We knew we weren't going anywhere until it got fixed," said Schroeder.

Safe back in his hotel, Schroeder's attention began to turn to his future.

"Once the shock wore off, I began to ask myself if I really want to continue this as a career," Schroeder admitted.

Although the experience rattled his nerves, Schroeder believes that it has made him a better ARWO.

"It's not for the faint of heart and the weak of stomach, but when you have an experience like that it boosts your confidence," he stressed. "If I can get through that, I can do anything."