What's It Like Inside a Typhoon? (cont.)

Penetration is a tricky deal. The idea is to stay out the way of feeder arms, which consist of turbulent, convective clouds. The airplane is instead flown between them, making sure a west wind flows directly parallel with the wings, and is turned constantly as it drifts. The airplane's air and ground speeds are therefore kept equal and drift maximized. This way the plane rotates between the same two arms, and enters the wall cloud some distance north of the original entry point.
"The wall cloud itself is only about 10 miles across with light to moderate turbulence," Dr. Tomlinson said with a shrug as I stared at him. I wondered, if he thought 10 miles weren't anything, what in heaven's name was the light to moderate turbulence really like? He continued. "You never saw droplets on the windows, the atmosphere was so saturated it looked like continuous cascades of water." "Really," I said, rather surprised by this bit of information. I had always thought going into a storm would be almost blind flying with beads of precipitation covering the windscreen. Obviously, I had a completely different idea of what a typhoon was like inside. I further realized this as we made our way into the eye. 

Fixing
"When you went from the wall cloud to the eye, you'd really get a kick [because of the dramatic difference in wind direction], but once inside it was pretty smooth." 
The average diameter of an eye is 15 miles. "We were in one that was 8 miles across and we couldn't stay in, we kept getting thrown out." This hadn't occurred to me either - that you would experience a pronounced centrifugal effect (an apparent force) due to being "pulled" into a small circle. The pilot must have had quite a time keeping the continuous turn coordinated. The pilots who flew these missions in the southern hemisphere, must have known better than anyone the importance of right rudder!

The eye could be quite clear, with the sea visible below and stars overhead. Sometimes both views might be obscured by scud clouds (stratus) beneath and cirrus clouds capping off the top at 35,000 - 50,000 feet. In either situation, the eye center had to be found and fixed (geographic position identified). "The eye center [point of lowest pressure] isn't always the same as the geometric center." The actual fixing, back then, was done by LORAN, Doppler navigation, land RADAR if close to land, or even celestially on clear nights! 

Next the dropsonde is pushed out the trap door in the tail, over the eye center. As it falls the 10,000 feet, it measures atmospheric profiles of pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind. The information is transmitted back to the crew by emitting a signal, picked up and translated by the Weather Officer's computer. However, in order to do this, they must remain inside the typhoon for another two to three minutes to receive the signal.

Outside 
This part of the mission being accomplished, it is time to pull out and wait the five to six hours before re-entering. "We would generally fly around the vicinity of a storm between fixes, or fly a standard series of box patterns to collect data." 

The C-130's were supplied with approximately 10.5 hours of fuel, plus reserves. The crew often returned to base nearly tapping into the reserve tanks. "I often ate my lunch coming in. You're just too pre-occupied with everything while you are out there to think about eating." 

----

"So, do have any questions?" he asked. "How long did you do this?" I asked. "About two years," he replied. I tried to imagine having this job for two years. A fascinating experience no doubt, but week after week? He must have been reading my thoughts, because he interrupted then with, "I loved it," and his smile confirmed it. 

Natalie Kunz 
April 25, 2000 

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