Hurricane hunters storm BIA

BANGOR – Hurricanes don’t reach Maine often, but when they do, the common reaction is to head in the opposite direction of the powerful storms.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s “hurricane hunters” are a little different from the average weather watchers: They fly toward the storm.

Actually, they fly into the storm.

“We are definitely a different group of individuals,” Phil Kennedy, a pilot with NOAA’s hurricane hunters, said Monday at Bangor International Airport, the first stop of the 2005 East Coast Hurricane Awareness Tour. “I wouldn’t necessarily call us crazy, but some might.”

The hurricane hunter aircraft, the Lockheed WP-3D Orion, was on display outside a hangar at BIA all day Monday, and its crew treated groups of school children and the public to tours.

The Orion is one of two planes made specifically for NOAA, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the aircraft has every piece of technology available for studying weather patterns.

The plane measures 111 feet long, with a wing span of nearly 100 feet. It has four engines, several radar stations and computers that can stream images in RealTime from inside a storm to ground headquarters. It even has kitchen quarters, which visitors on Monday weren’t allowed to see.

On the outside, the plane has red stickers for every hurricane it has flown through. Given the nature of its missions, the plane seemed to be in surprisingly good shape, though Monday morning’s sunny weather was a break from the norm.

Crew member James McFadden said a lot of downtime is spent keeping the hurricane hunting aircraft in tiptop shape; after all, the lives of the crew depend on it.

Sheila Coombs, a teacher at Islesboro Central School, and 13 pupils from grades four through six were first in line for a tour.

“[Islesboro] has a personal connection to less-than-perfect weather,” Coombs said. “Weather is actually a big topic in our science curriculum.”

The plane and its crew work year round but are best known for their kamikaze work during hurricane season. The 2004 season was a busy one.

“Last year was one of the most active and devastating seasons in recent history,” Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said Monday to a group of Maine dignitaries and media members. “Statistics and radar is great, but being able to go inside the storm … these guys are literally saving lives.”

Before the public got to peek inside the plane, the group, including U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, climbed aboard for a VIP tour.

“Speaking as someone who has a very low tolerance for turbulence, I think it’s an extraordinary act of courage for this crew,” Collins said.

“None of us can imagine what it’s like to fly into a hurricane, although some think Senator Collins and I see more hurricanes down in Washington [D.C.],” Michaud joked.

The crew, about 18 people for any given hurricane hunter flight, usually consists of an assortment of pilot, engineers, technicians and scientists.

“We’re all a team,” Kennedy said. “One of the great things about our crew is our ability to change plans on the fly. … Everyone knows that the weather does not go according to plans.”

Kennedy has been flying the Orion since 1990, and before that, he flew similar planes as a naval aviator.

“You don’t have time to be nervous up there, but when you get back to the ground, sometimes you have to ask yourself: ‘Did I really fly into that?” Kennedy said.

James McFadden, another crew member with NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., has been a hurricane hunter for 38 years and has logged 508 flights.

McFadden said the worst of his 508 penetration flights into a storm was Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

“We had our No. 3 engine fail, and by the time we landed the cabin was a wreck,” McFadden said, then added matter-of-factly, “But we were none the worse for the wear.”

“These guys were born to do this,” Mayfield said. “And we definitely don’t take them for granted.”

The National Weather Service’s Maine offices in Caribou and Gray and Bangor International Airport officials were instrumental in bringing the hurricane hunters to Bangor.

The tour made a stop in Portland two years ago, and now is headed to Baltimore as part of a five-city tour.