53 WRS History -- The First Flight
Back in July, 1943, a group of English and American pilots from an
instrument flight school in Bryan, Texas, gathered over lunch. The talk
that day was about when they'd need
to evacuate their single-engine AT-6 aircraft away from an approaching
hurricane. Some of these pilots
had combat experience in much bigger airplanes, and sarcastically said the little
AT-6 couldn't take much weather.
One of the instructors, Lt Col Joe Duckworth, defended his airplanes, saying they
could fly in any weather, and the other pilots dared him to prove it.
Duckworth grabbed the only navigator on base, Ralph O'Hair, and together
they flew into the pages of history. They penetrated the storm at 5,000 to
6,000 feet as it churned just off the coast.
"I was scared flying into the thing," said Ralph, years later.
"The water (rain) was very, very heavy. You could hear
it in an AT-6. That was an awesome thing. The farther we got in, the darker it
got."
They found the eye, and circled it a few times, then returned home. Having
conquered the unknown, the return flight was uneventful. Soon after landing,
Lt Col Duckworth enticed the base weather officer to join him on another
flight. The weather officer took notes, and thus was modern hurricane
hunting born.
