HURRICANE HUNTERS
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Supertyphoon! That meant the winds were up to at least 155 mph, a Category 5 storm. Usually only a couple storms reached this level each season, so it doubled the excitement for a rookie weather officer flying her first storm without an instructor. Little did she realize this would be the ride of her life.
We were almost to the eyewall, according to the Doppler clicking down the miles to the predicted center of the storm: like an odometer in reverse. Time to buckle in before hitting the eyewall, but just seconds too late; I found myself sailing through the air, from my seat at the back of the flight deck, over the shoulders of the flight engineer and then the copilot.
I struggled back to my seat, strapped in, and waited for the wings to snap off. Several thoughts ran through my head, such as, "I'll pay it all back; they can have my hazardous duty pay, just get me back on the ground!", but then a calm set in as I thought, "I've had a good life, its okay".
The violent turbulence continued. The crew was completely silent as the pilots struggled to control the airplane. The plane was relatively quiet, too, since the pilots pulled back the engine power as we rode down into the deep pressure well of the supertyphoon. We were dropping like an elevator in free-fall from the pressure change alone. My eyes were riveted on the radar altimeter as the needle swept around the dial three times, losing a thousand feet with each revolution.
Suddenly it got brighter, and the torrential rain stopped as we broke out into the eye. The flight engineer broke the silence by drawling, "Well, if they were all like that, I woulda quit a long time ago." The pilot then glanced out his side window and barked, "The wing is bent!" The nav and I unbuckled and dashed to the window to see, and then realized the pilot was just kidding. But it had the intended effect, and got us moving again. The view out the window was awesome, all the more because we were simply glad to be alive. We were in the middle of a perfect cylinder of dark clouds, clear above and below. I tried to see the exact center in the water below, but there was a small cloud right in the middle, with huge waves running toward that cloud from each direction. I wondered what it looked like where they collided under that cloud. But now it was time to go back to work. |
Supertyphoon Dot |