Fighter jets and Hurricane Katrina

[worst-class]

Hi All,

Caught the last part of a CNN report the other day about the US sending fighter jets to fly through (above?) the hurricane to try and dissipate the force, how does this work? Or did I misinterpret?

:confused:

[Captain Sand Dune]

Riiiiiiiiight!!

[Mark McG]

The US have some specially adapted Herc's that are used as Hurricane hunters - it is their job to fly into and through the eye of the storm, in an effort to gather as much scientific data as they can on Hurricanes. This might have been what you saw - when I was in Florida last year, there was a lot of coverage of the Hurricane hunters on TV and the missions they flew.

[Fris B. Fairing]

NOAA HURRICANE HUNTER PILOT CAPTURES KATRINA AT HER MEANEST

Sept. 1, 2005 - NOAA hurricane hunter WP-3D Orion and Gulfstream IV aircraft conducted ten long flights into and around the eye of Hurricane Katrina. Lt. Mike Silah, a P-3 pilot, got to see Hurricane Katrina up close and personal, especially when she was an extremely dangerous Category Five storm in the Gulf of Mexico. The day before the powerful and destructive storm made landfall on the USA Gulf Coast, Silah snapped a series of images capturing the eyewall of Katrina.

Silah is a NOAA Corps officer based at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center in Tampa, Fla.

View the pics at http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2496.htm

[belowMDA]

Does anyone know what the tops of the associated cloud are? ie the altitude/flight level.

[Dr Dave]

For info, the amount of energy released through cloud/rain formation in an average hurricane (which is much smaller than Katrina) is estimated to be 5.2 x 10^19 Joules/day or 6.0 x 10^14 Watts.

This is equivalent to 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity. There is no way that flying a fighter jet through would have much effect.

[alexban]

hats off for those pilots,you have to be a bit crazy to do that ,I guess.There should be some CB's and heavy turbulance ,there ,IMHO:}
Great pictures,viewed from home :)
any first hand experience of flying through this kind of storm?

[babyboeing400]

it's gonna take a whole more guts than a typical airline pilot has...:rolleyes:

[Whiskey226]

Are those aircraft reinforced in any way? I just can't comprehend how they don't get smashed up into tiny little bits and strewn all over the country side...

[Farrell]

I'll bet you that "Airwolf" could have stopped it, cos it's got like special rotor blades and stuff.

[DeBurcs]

"Blue Thunder" was always more of a man's helo than "Airwolf"...

As for airline pilots, most of the ones I know have a lot of gut...

[Turn It Off]

No way, Airwolf is much Harder!!!!


I suggest a poll!!!

[16 blades]

The NOAA's Herc(s) are not structurally modified in any way. The only mods are associated with the fitted sensor equipment.

If you think about it, why would flying through a hurricane be any different to any other weather phenomenon? The windspeeds you will encounter are no more fierce than in the average jetstream, and updraughts are considerably less intense than an average CB. What makes hurricanes so destructive is that these windspeeds reach ground level.

16B

[Ignition Override]

True, 16-blades.
One of their pilots was on a two-day trip this summer as my First Officer. The hurricane season began very early this summer.

In the guy's Hurricane Hunter, Air Force Reserve squadron at Keesler AFB, Biloxi (the town was one of several which were destroyed by Katrina), MS, they fly the older three-man c0ckp1t and also the newer J model, with the automated systems and EFIS. The guy also flew the B-52 and the Special Operations MC-130 (they sometimes must destroy navigational charts after a mission-you should hear about the squadron which was based in Taiwan many years ago...).

The RAF flies the J model, doesn't it?

[Bear 555]

Looks absolutely breathtaking. Where do I apply...

:-)

[High_Expect]

Sorry to shatter anyone dreams. Alas, it is not the all-powerful helicopter we once thought


http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Airwolf&word2=Hurricane+Katrina

RIP Airwolf

:eek:

[bodach]

Caught the last part of a CNN report the other day about the US sending fighter jets to fly through (above?) the hurricane to try and dissipate the force, how does this work? Or did I misinterpret?
During a recent trip to jolly Texas, I saw a news article featuring a mad boffin type who was proposing to use a series of jet engines pointing skywards, mounted on a raft, to in theory create mini-hurricanes in order to dissipate the latent atmospheric energy that would have the potential to allow stronger hurricanes to develop a la Ivan, Katrina etc. :eek:
In practical terms it seems to be akin to playing Russian Roulette with Mother Nature. What's to stop one of the mini-hurricanes developing into a Cat-5 state-buster? :}

As ever the sheer impracticality of the scheme will no doubt be seen as a challenge to the prowess of the US, making it all the more likely that such a hare-brained scheme be adopted.
:hmm:

[cuthere]

16 Blades, as a hurricane is essentially made up of a huge spinning mass of CB cloud, in the case of Katarina with tops to FL520 (yep, 51000 FT deep CBs), then you can imagine that flying through one would be very unlike flying through a jetstream which is more often than not constant (though rapid) flow of air; only in some cases do jetstreams produce CAT. Nor would it be anything like the CBs we get in the UK (or even over Europe) where tops rarely get above FL400. The comparison is just slightly off.