“on the rushing of the wings of the wind. it is indeed a knowledge which must be felt to be in its very essence full of the soul of the beautiful.” —ruskin
a hurricane flight which proves to be rougher than usual is known among the hunters as a “hairy hop.” it is an amazing fact that there are men who want to come down to the airfield when a big storm is imminent and “thumb a ride.” mostly, they are newspaper reporters, magazine writers, photographers, civilian weathermen, and radio and television people. usually they are accommodated, if they have made arrangements in advance. some of these rides have been quiet, like a sightseer’s trip over a city, while others have been “hairy.”
one of the first newspapermen to take a ride into a full-fledged hurricane was milt sosin of the miami daily news. in 1944, milt read about men of the army and navy who were just beginning to fly into hurricanes and he became obsessed with the wish to go along. when he asked for permission, the editor said “no” in a very positive tone. he could see no point in having a good staff correspondent 186 dropped in the ocean during a wild ride in a hurricane. sosin insisted and he was told to see the managing editor. he did and there was another argument. sosin told him, “if i don’t, somebody else will and we’ll be scooped.” reluctantly, the managing editor gave permission. but when sosin asked the immigration authorities, they said “no. you have no passport, and you don’t know what country you may fall in.” they refused. sosin hung around and argued. he pointed out that if the plane went down at sea, he wouldn’t need any passport to the place he was going, and they finally agreed.
milt sosin got his wish in full measure on september 13, 1944, in the great atlantic hurricane which had developed a fury seldom attained, even in the worst of these tropical giants. it had crossed the northern bahamas and was headed northwestward on a broad arc that was to bring its death-dealing winds to new jersey, long island and new england. already we have told the story of army and navy planes probing this big storm, including the pioneering trip by colonel wood and others of the washington weather staff. at the end of this trip, sosin was glad to be back on land and vowed, “never again!” but, somehow, he still had the urge to see these storms from the inside and afterward was a frequent guest of the navy and air force.
one of sosin’s most interesting trips was on september 14, 1947, in a b-17. they took off from miami. al topel, also from the miami daily news, went along to take pictures, and fred clampitt, news editor of radio station wiod, was the other guest. the big hurricane was roaring toward the bahamas with steadily increasing fury and the people of florida were worried—and for good reason, for three days later it raked the state from east to west, killing more than fifty people and causing destruction estimated in excess of one hundred million dollars. by many observers it was 187 eventually rated as the most violent hurricane between 1944 and 1949.
they ran into it east of the bahamas. as the plane burrowed its way through the seething blasts, sosin wrote in his shaking notebook:
“this airplane feels as if it’s cracking up. ominous crashes in the aft compartment accompany every sickening lurch and dive as, buffeted by 140-mile-an-hour winds and sucked into powerful downdrafts, the huge bomber bores through to the core of the storm.”
sosin said that the pilot, captain vince huegele, and the co-pilot, lieutenant don ketcham, were literally wrestling with the hurricane in clothes sopping wet from perspiration and, as soon as they came into the center, began to take off their wet garments. ketcham had “pealed down to his shorts before the plane plunged back into the mad vortex.”
at this point they were surprised to see another plane in the storm, a b-29, flying in the eye at thirty-six thousand feet, trying to discover the “steering level” where the main currents of the atmosphere control the forward movement of tropical disturbances such as this one. the radio man, sergeant jeff thornton, was trying to contact the b-29, miles overhead, but with no luck. sosin wrote in his notebook:
“but here at this low level we have more to worry about than trying to reach the other plane. we are getting an awful kicking around. wow! that was a beaut. al topel was foolish enough to unfasten his safety belt and stand up for a better angle shot of the raging turbulent sea below. we must have dropped one hundred feet and his head hit the aluminum ribbing of the plane’s ceiling. then, trying to protect his camera, he skinned his elbows and knuckles. now he’s given up and has even strapped a safety belt around his camera.”
the crew was busy plotting positions and checking on the 188 engines. to them it was an old story, except that none could recall such violent turbulence. the craft was low enough for them to get glimpses of the sea but they wanted a better view and they began to descend cautiously. sosin wrote:
“the turbulence is getting worse. the sea is streaked with greenish-gray lines which look like daubs made by a child who has stuck his fingers into a can of paint. now we are closed in. we are flying blind. capt. john c. mays, the weather observer, starts giving the pilots readings from his radar altimeter while huegele sends the plane lower and lower in an effort to establish visual contact with the sea.
“‘five hundred feet,’ mays calls into the plane’s intercom.
“‘ok,’ replies the skipper.
“‘four hundred feet.’
“‘roger.’
“‘three-fifty.’
“‘roger.’
“‘two-fifty.’
“‘ok.’
“‘two hundred feet,’ mays’ voice is still even.
“‘ok,’ comes huegele’s voice.
“it may be ok with him but it isn’t with me. i just found myself tugging tentatively on the pull toggles which will inflate my ‘mae west’ life jacket if i yank hard enough. i checked a long time ago to make certain the co cartridges were where they should be.
“fred clampitt, wiod news editor, is turning green.
“no, it’s not fear. he’s sweating so much that the colored chemical shark repellent in a pocket of his life jacket is starting to run.
“then we sight the sea again. from this low level the waves are frightening. they are traveling in all directions, not in just one, and they break against each other, dashing salt spray high into the air. it’s all too close.
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“now the ceiling is lifting and we are climbing—250, 300, 500, 700 and we level off. it grows less turbulent and observer mays looks up from his deep concentration.
“‘i may be wrong,’ he says, ‘but it looks to me as if it’s made a little curve toward the north.’
“which is very interesting—but more interesting is the fact that the day’s work is over and we’re on our way home.”
in 1947, the air forces were assigning b-29’s to their kindley base at bermuda, to replace the b-17’s. the big superforts had room for guests and it soon became common to have somebody hanging around kindley to get a ride. when a big storm was spotted east of the windward islands on the eleventh of september of that year, two newspaper reporters and a photographer from life magazine, francis miller, were waiting at bermuda for a hop. the big hurricane became even more violent as it turned toward the southwest and swept across florida. it was september 14th when milt sosin of the miami daily news got his “hairy hop” in this same blow. as it crossed the coast, winds of full hurricane force stretched over a distance of 240 miles and the wind reached 155 miles an hour at hillsboro light. by this time the hurricane hunters were fully occupied and the riders were left on the ground. miami communication lines were wiped out and control of the hunters had been shifted to washington. in charge of a b-17 at bermuda was major hawley. his co-pilot was captain dunn, who had learned hurricane hunting in “kappler’s hurricane” and other earlier storms. late on the seventeenth, as the storm roared across florida with night closing in, hawley had heard nothing from washington about his plane going into it, so he gave up and told the riders to come back in the morning.
early the next morning, one of the reporters, a staff writer for the bermuda royal gazette, was sitting around in his shorts and thinking about breakfast when lieutenant cronin 190 rushed in and said they were ready to take off. the reporter started to get dressed, but cronin said, “let’s go. just as you are. you may drown but you won’t freeze.” they stopped in hamilton, got the other reporter and the photographer, and found hawley walking up and down, impatiently waiting for last instructions. so the reporter took a trip of 3,350 miles in his shorts and had a bird’s-eye view of the southern seaboard, the atlantic ocean and gulf of mexico and a bad-acting hurricane.
it was a “hairy hop.” they had orders to refuel at mobile, so they put down at the airfield there, all other planes having been evacuated the day before. an air force man came out and asked, “where you goin’?” they told him and he turned around and shouted, “some dang fools think they have a kite and can fly through a hurricane.” more men came out and they got gas in the plane. one big fellow said, “you can have your dern trip. but keep the storm away from here.” in twenty minutes they were in the storm. the crew members were bare to the waist, perspiration pouring down, water coming through the panel joints, and everything was wet and shaking. one of the reporters described it this way:
“suddenly the plane keeled over on one side, the left wing tip dipped down vertically, and for a moment i thought the end had come. i gulped for breath as the plane dropped. the sea rushed up towards us; huge waves reared up and mocked us, clawing up at the wing tip as if trying to swallow us in one. a greater burst from the engines, a hovering sensation for a second and then, with the whole plane shuddering under the strain, our nose once again tilted upward. i felt weak and with difficulty breathed again.”
the plane had no radar and the crew had a lot of trouble trying to locate the center of the hurricane. the forecasters at miami were anxious for an accurate position of the center. at that time airborne radars were being installed as standard 191 equipment as rapidly as they could get around to it but the b-17’s came last. low pressure guided them, and they were trying to get into the part of the hurricane where they found the pressure falling rapidly. it was a big storm and they were having little luck in the search. “lashed by winds and rain, the b-17 staggered across the sky,” one of the reporters said afterward. he went on to tell his story:
“i was growing sick in the bomb aimer’s bay stretched over a pile of parachutes and hanging onto the navigator’s chair for dear life. some baggage, roped down beforehand, now lay strewn across the gangway. parachutes, life jackets, water cans and camera cases were thrown about into heaps. the photographer, trying in vain to take pictures out of the window, was knocked down and sent flying across the fuselage. his arms were bruised from repeated efforts. my stomach was everywhere but where it should have been. everything went black. the plane was thrown from side to side and the floor under my feet dropped. we emerged from a big cloud into an eerie and uncanny pink half-light. the photographer clambered from the floor and tried to look out. he thought the reddish light was an engine on fire.
“before we touched down at tampa, after four hours of flying around in the hurricane, we reporters and the photographer were exhausted. and even then they had failed to get into the calm center, although they had sent back to washington a lot of useful information on the storm’s position.”
more than anything else, the preliminaries unnerve the guest rider. they tell him about the “ditching” procedures; that is, what to do if the plane is on the verge of settling down on the raging sea. two or three hours before take-off they are likely to have a ditching drill, along with the briefing on the storm and the check on the equipment. the guest is told that if they bail out, he will go through a forward 192 bomb bay door. there is hollow laughter as someone makes it clear that there is very little chance of survival. but they want the guest to have every advantage.
commander n. brango of navy reconnaissance says: “yes, we get a good many requests from men who want to go along. would you like to go on an eight- to ten-hour flight in a four-engine, thirty-ton, navy patrol plane? you will probably see some of the beautifully lush islands of the antilles chain, waters shading gradually from pale green to a deep clear emerald, shining white coral beaches, native villages buried in tropical jungles, and many other sights usually referred to in the travel advertisements.
“doesn’t that sound enticing? there is just one catch. you may have to spend four to five hours of your flight-time shuddering and shaking around in the aircraft like an ice cube in a cocktail shaker, with rain driving into a hundred previously undiscovered leaks in the plane and thence down the nearest neck. you may bump your head, or other more padded portions of your anatomy, on various and sundry projecting pieces of metal (of which there seem to be at least a million). you may not be able to see much of anything, at times, since it will be raining so hard that your horizontal visibility will be nil, or you may be able to catch glimpses, straight down about 300 feet, of mountainous waves and an ocean being torn apart by winds of 90 to 150 miles per hour. there’s one thing i will guarantee you, you won’t be writing postcards to your friends saying, ‘having a wonderful time, wish you were here,’ because you won’t be able to keep the pen on paper long enough to write much of anything.”
you have guessed by now that the carefully phrased invitation was just a trap to get you aboard one of the navy’s “hurricane hunter” patrol planes as it departs on a hurricane reconnaissance mission. according to brango, these 193 flights have been described by visiting correspondents, using “thrilling,” “awe-inspiring,” “terrifying,” and other equally impressive adjectives. actually, it is difficult to find words to describe such a flight. that it is hazardous is obvious, but the feeling that accomplishing the mission may mean the saving of many lives and much property makes it seem worth doing—not to mention the lift received from an occasional “well-done” from up the line.
just to indicate to the prospective guest what it may be like, brango gives “caribbean charlie” of 1951 as an example.
charlie was spawned several hundred miles east of the windward island of trinidad. the first notice the navy had of its presence was a ship reporting an area of bad weather, and almost immediately one of the hurricane hunter planes from the advanced base in puerto rico was in the air to get the first reports on charlie. for the next nine days charlie led them a wild, if not a merry chase. he slipped by night through the windward islands and into the caribbean, loafed across this broad expanse of water, then slammed into kingston, jamaica, dealing that city one of its most devastating blows in history. then charlie headed across the yucatan channel and over the yucatan peninsula, where he lost some of his push. some sixteen hours later he broke into the gulf of campeche with renewed fury, stormed across the gulf and into the mexican coast at tampico, on august 22, again costing lives and millions in property damage.
during his long rampage, he was being invaded almost daily by navy planes. on tuesday, august 21, brango had the fortune of being assigned to the reconnaissance crew for that day.
they departed miami at noon of a bright sunny day. for three hours they flew over a calm ocean, flecked with sunlight. 194 by then they could see the looming mass of clouds ahead, which indicated charlie’s whereabouts. dropping from seven thousand feet cruising altitude to six hundred feet, they started getting into the eye. the sun had disappeared and the winds jumped rapidly to seventy miles an hour. for almost an hour they swung around to the west and south, feeling for the weaker side, as the winds got up to one hundred miles per hour and the rain and turbulence became terrific for about ten minutes before they broke through the inner wall and into the eye.
according to brango, “the eye is a pleasant place! many of them have blue sky, calm seas and air smooth enough to catch up on your reports and even drink a cup of coffee. charlie’s eye wasn’t too good—big, but cloudy; still it was better than what we had just come through, so we hung around for about thirty-five minutes, watching the birds. there are usually hundreds of birds in the eye of a hurricane. probably they get blown in there and have enough sense not to try to fly out. but not us, we want out.”
soon the decision to start out was made, and the order went over the inter-com: “stand by to leave the eye—report when ready.” this always brings the stock answer, which has become a standard joke in the squadron: “don’t worry about us mules, just load the wagon!”
the flight out was rough. sunset was nearing, and in the storm area night falls rapidly. for almost two hours they beat their way through one hundred mile-per-hour winds toward the edge of the storm and in the general direction of corpus christi, their destination. the turbulence and rain on the way out were so severe that they were unable to send out messages and position reports, so someone in the crew, catching a glimpse of the waves beneath, came through with the scintillating remark that “we’re still lost, but we are making excellent time.”
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about nine hours after they had left miami, they landed at the naval air station, corpus christi, texas. an hour later they were out of their dripping flight suits and “testing the quality of texas draught beer.”
at dawn the next morning, another crew and another plane from the squadron was into the hurricane, only a few hours before it struck tampico and then swirled inland, to dissipate itself on the mountain range to the west of that coastal city.
shortly before the middle of september, 1948, the weather bureau in washington had a long-distance call from the baltimore sun. a staff correspondent, geoffrey w. fielding, wanted to fly into a hurricane. the weather bureau arranged it through general don yates, in charge of the air weather service, and on september 20, fielding was authorized and invited to proceed to bermuda at such time as necessary between that date and november 30, to go with one of the crews on a reconnaissance mission. the air force offered transportation to bermuda and return at the proper time.
on the day of fielding’s call, a vicious hurricane was threatening bermuda and the b-29’s were exploring it, but it was too late to arrange a trip. on the thirteenth it passed a short distance east of the islands, with winds of 140 miles an hour. the next tropical disturbance was found in the caribbean west of jamaica and became a fully developed storm on september 19. as it raked its way across the western end of cuba on the twentieth, and southern florida on the twenty-first and twenty-second, fielding flew to bermuda. by the time they were ready to take off, the storm was picking up force after crossing florida and was headed in his direction.
not the worrying type, fielding made notes of everything: 196 the ditching tactics, the lifesavers and parachutes, sandwiches for lunch, the weather instruments, and the exact time of take-off, 12:03 p.m., bermuda time. already, high, thin cirrus clouds were seen, spreading ahead of the storm. southward, the clouds lowered and thickened. and then the aircraft commander, captain frank thompson, saw a tanker wallowing in the heavy swells a quarter of a mile below, and everybody had a look. big seas swept over the bows of the ship and crashed on deck. the crew of the b-29 felt sorry for the men on the tanker.
“watch that old ship roll down there,” said the pilot. “those poor guys may be in this a couple days. they make very little headway as the hurricane drives toward them. i wouldn’t like to be in their place.” the super fortress flew a straight course into the teeth of the hurricane and low, ragged, rain-filled clouds soon hid the tanker from view. increasing winds buffeted the big aircraft, which now seemed like a pigmy plane in this vast wind system. they were instructed to follow the “boxing” procedure and were headed for sixty-knot winds in the northeast sector.
over the inter-communications suddenly came the excited voice of the navigator, lieutenant chester camp: “i’ve got them—there they are—sixty-knot winds. bring the plane around.” the plane banked in a right turn as the pilot brought the winds on the tail and shot fuel into the engines to force the plane through winds that would become more violent. so they started the first leg of the box.
the weather officer, lieutenant chester evans, was seated in the bomb-aimer’s position in the glass nose of the plane, practically in the teeth of the gale. in addition to keeping track of the weather, he guided the pilots by reading the altimeters to get the height of the plane above the sea. in spite of the jostling he was getting from the bouncing plane, 197 fielding investigated these operations and wrote in his notebook:
“in addition to the regular altimeter, lieutenant evans has a radar altimeter, which works on the principle of the echo sounding machine used by ships. a radar wave is transmitted from the small instrument to the surface of the sea and bounces back again. the time elapsed between transmission and reception is computed by the gadget in feet, giving an accurate height reading. the information is passed back to the pilots who adjust their pressure altimeters. in some cases the error of the pressure altimeter measures up to three or four hundred feet in a hurricane.
“the second leg of the box started at 3:05 p.m. and was quite short, lasting only thirty minutes before the plane had run through the low pressure and then to a place where it was six millibars higher. low gray ragged clouds increased in this sector and the ceiling lowered. on order from the commander, called sooky by the crew, the plane went down to two hundred feet. below, seen through a film of cloud, the water raged and boiled. huge streaks, many of them hundreds of feet long, etched white lines on the beaten water, which was flatter than a pancake. the roaring, tearing wind scooped up tons of water at a time which, as it rose, was knocked flat again by the force of the wind. sometimes the wind would literally dig into the water, scooping it out. from this, huge shell-shaped waves of spume would careen across the water.”
at this point, someone yelled, “sooky, take a look at the water. you’ll never see this again. wind is ninety miles an hour now.” all the crew peered through the windows. the sea was absolutely flat, except for huge streaks, some of which the weather observer estimated to be at least five feet below the surface of the water. the time was 3:45 p.m., 198 according to fielding, who kept precise notes on everything. instead of being thrown all over the place as he had expected, the plane was being lifted up and flopped down again in a series of sickening jolts. to stand upright called for an acrobat, not a newspaperman. he found it useless to stand, anyway. it resulted only in a hard crack on the head when the plane dropped.
at 3:55 p.m., the navigator screeched over the interphone: “it’s up to one hundred miles an hour, now. gee, is this some storm!” the rain came in torrents. “driven by a smashing, battering wind, it hammered on the skin of the plane. the wind joined in the noise, howling and screeching outside and the roar of the engines was drowned out by the mad symphony of nature,” wrote fielding. the plane bucked and yawed but it was designed for high-altitude flying, with pressurized cabins for use when needed, and no rain came in.
they were on the third leg now and it became hotter in the plane. everybody was sweating profusely. fielding wrote that the “storm bucked and tossed the heavy bomber through the skies like a leaf in autumn.” at 3:58 p.m., the wind was up to 120 knots. in the midst of all the noise, fielding heard a voice on the inter-com. “how are you feeling?” came a question. “not so good,” was the miserable reply. “i wish sooky would get the plane out of this. that blue cheese i ate in a sandwich for lunch is turning over. all i can taste is that stinking stuff.” others admitted having fluttering stomachs.
the radar operator was unable to get the eye of the hurricane on the scope. the co-pilot, captain hoffman, commented on the scene: “this is a big storm. it has really picked up in size.” hardly were the words out of his mouth before he yelled, “hey, look, it’s clear outside! the sun’s 199 coming through.” a shaft of sunlight probed through the clouds and filled the cabin with a reassuring glow. they ran the fourth leg but there was nothing new. fielding thought that they had seen all that this hurricane could produce in the way of violence. the radio operator got kindley air base on the 42-20 frequency and learned that all other military planes in the area were warned to head for the nearest mainland base. they asked for clearance to macdill field and got it at 6:25 p.m. stars appeared in a clearing sky and the plane leveled off and roared through the darkness. it was good to be able to hear the engines again. tins of soup were opened and legs were stretched. stomachs had settled and there was light chatter over the inter-com. the plane touched down at macdill at 10:45 p.m. the men went to bed with aching bodies but they slept. as fielding said at the end of his notes, “we had been eleven hours in the air, much of it in violent weather, and the constant strain tells on you.”
finally, in 1954, the so-called “hairy hop” was projected into the living rooms of people all over the country. when hurricane edna was headed up the coast toward new england, edward r. murrow and a camera crew of the columbia broadcasting system flew to bermuda, and the air force succeeded in getting the entire group—murrow, three assistants and one thousand five hundred pounds of camera equipment—in the front of the plane. while everybody on the crew held his breath and murrow used up all the matches aboard and wore out the flint on a lighter, the big plane was skillfully piloted through the squall bands and pushed over into the center. the cameras ground away and murrow asked endless questions. the eye was magnificent, called a storybook setup, clear blue skies above, the center being twenty miles in diameter, with cloud walls rising to 200 about 30,000 feet on all sides. the return was as skillful as the entrance, through the squall bands, out from under the storm clouds and back home above blue waters and in the sunshine. the film brought to television viewers some idea of the majesty and power of a great storm.
murrow described their passage into the eye of the storm in these words:
“the navigator (captain ed vrable) asked for a turn to the left, and in a couple of minutes the b-29 began to shudder. the co-pilot said: ‘i think we’re in it.’ the pilot said: ‘we’re going up,’ although every control was set to take us down. something lifted us about three hundred feet, then the pilot said: ‘we’re going down,’ although he was doing everything humanly possible to take us up. edna was in control of the aircraft. we were on an even keel but being staggered by short sharp blows.
“then we hit something with a bang that was audible above the roar of the motors; a solid sheet of water. seconds later brilliant sunshine hit us like a hammer; someone shouted: ‘there she is,’ and we were in the eye. calm air, calm, flat sea below; a great amphitheater, round as a dollar, with white clouds sloping up to twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand feet. the water looked like a blue alpine lake with snow-clad mountains coming right down to the water’s edge. a great bowl of sunshine.
“the eye of a hurricane is an excellent place to reflect upon the puniness of man and his works. if an adequate definition of humility is ever written, it’s likely to be done in the eye of a hurricane.”
the air force man who made the arrangements for this broadcast, major william c. anderson, said that this relatively smooth flight was the best possible testimonial to the progress the hurricane hunters had made in flying these big 201 storms, for edna was no weakling. but he worried about it day and night until the flight was finished, for many strange things can happen. when murrow and his crew were safely back in new york, anderson turned in for his first good night’s rest in two weeks, duly thankful that it hadn’t turned out to be a “hairy hop.”
