It's Hurricane Awareness Week, and two "hurricane hunter" aircraft came to the Roanoke airport yesterday. Most hurricane fatalities are due to inland flooding, so Roanoke is a good location to remind everyone of the dangers of flash floods from excessive rainfall. Who could pass up an opportunity to visit these aircraft (an Air Force C-130 and a NOAA P3-Orion)?
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| The first plane we got to see was an Air Force C-130. We waited about an hour to tour this plane. Who knew that so many people would come out on a Wednesday afternoon? |
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| We entered through the rear cargo door of the aircraft. |
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| The "dropsonde" port. Dropsondes are used on both aircraft, and send data back to the plane as they fall through the hurricane. |
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| NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has a Navy plane, the P3-Orion. |
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| Workstation to monitor data on the NOAA plane. |
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| The front of the NOAA plane reminds me of a narwhal. |
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| This aircraft has studied 106 hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones going back to 1976. (Strong tropical systems are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans, typhoons in the western Pacific Ocean, and cyclones in the Indian Ocean.) |
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