Navy hurricane hunters

Abstract

The end of the 1962 hurricane season marked the completion of 20 years of reconnaissance flying by the Navy Hurricane Hunters. Before the time when the hurricane warning centers had the support of aircraft reconnaissance. for every 10 million dollars in property caused by hurricanes in the United States about 400 lives were lost. Since 1943, when aircraft reconnaissance began, the loss of lives has been reduced 99 per cent. In providing support for the hurricane warning services. the Hurricane Hunters have logged almost 16,000 hours of weather reconnaissance flying equivalent to approximately 3 million nautical miles. Of this time, 5,720 hours were spent in surveillance of tropical storms or hurricanes and 579 actual penetrations were made into the centers of these storms. The only tragedy to mar this record of service is the loss of an aircraft during reconnaissance of hurricane JANET on September 26 1955, approximately 250 miles south of Jamaica.