Охотники за ураганами: 53-я эскадрилья разведывательных самолетов ВВС США

Twenty Second Air Force
403rd Wing
403rd Operations Group
| current commander = LtCol Dwayne Russell
| garrison = Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi
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| nickname = Hurricane Hunters
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| decorations = Meritorious Unit CommendationAir Force Outstanding Unit Award
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| identification symbol label = 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron emblem (1995)
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| identification symbol 2 label = 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron emblem (approved 1 April 1963)
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| identification symbol 3 label = 53rd Reconnaissance Squadron emblem <small>(approved 15 November 1945) Aligned under the 403rd Wing of the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) and based at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, with ten aircraft, it flies into tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Central Pacific Ocean for the specific purpose of directly measuring weather data in and around those storms. The 53rd WRS currently operates the Lockheed WC 130J aircraft as its weather data collection platform. The squadron was activated in 1944 during World War II as the 3rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, tracking weather in the North Atlantic between North America and Europe. Redesignated the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in 1945, the term "Hurricane Hunters" was first applied to its activities in 1946. The 53rd became a part of the USAF before its inactivation in 1947, was reactivated in 1951 as a long range weather reconnaissance unit based in Bermuda and England, and since 1963 has been based in the southern United States or in Puerto Rico with its primary mission the measurement of tropical cyclones. The 53rd WRS moved to its present home station at Keesler AFB in 1973, and after being briefly inactivated again between 1991 and 1993, became an Air Force Reserve unit. The Hurricane Hunters of the Air Force Reserve are distinct from those of the Department of Commerce's NOAA Hurricane Hunters, based at Lakeland Linder International Airport, Florida, who use a pair of Lockheed WP 3D Orion and a Gulfstream IV SP aircraft to also fly weather reconnaissance, data collection and scientific research missions. In accordance with its memorandum of agreement with NOAA, AFRC maintains a capability in the 53rd WRS for five sorties per day from its home station and two deployed locations in support of requirements for the National Hurricane Operations Plan, or two sorties a day during winter storm seasons. The 53rd also provides a subunit, the Chief, Aerial Reconnaissance Coordination, All Hurricanes ("CARCAH"), at the National Hurricane Center to coordinate the activities of both organizations. Concurrent with its operational mission, the 53rd WRS is also tasked with recruiting, organizing and training assigned personnel to perform aerial weather reconnaissance, and its air crews are qualified to handle tactical airlift missions.

Aerial reconnaissance of tropical storms first began in September 1935. In that year the United States Weather Bureau decentralized its hurricane warning system, which depended to a great extent on reports from ships at sea, opening three warning centers in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Jacksonville, Florida; and New Orleans, Louisiana. In August the Jacksonville center followed the progress of a developing hurricane east of the Bahamas, determining that it would pass through the Straits of Florida and strike the north coast of Cuba. It contacted the Cuban weather service when ship information was no longer available, but track of the storm was lost when the Cubans observed no evidence of it. Acting on a report from a Pan American Airlines pilot, a weather observation flight was requested of the Cuban Army Ar Corps and on 2 September 1935 its chief training pilot, American expatriate Capt. Leonard J. Povey, volunteered to locate the system. Although he was unable to penetrate the storm in his open cockpit Curtiss Hawk II biplane, Povey provided information that indicated the hurricane was moving north into the Florida Keys. The destructiveness of the 1935 Labor Day hurricane prompted Povey to recommend a regular aerial hurricane patrol. The 1943 Surprise Hurricane, which struck Houston during World War II, marked the first intentional meteorological flight into a hurricane. That summer, British pilots being trained as instrument instructor pilots at Bryan Army Airfield heard that the school was evacuating its AT 6 Texan trainers in the face of the oncoming hurricane, and began teasing their instructors about the airworthiness of the aircraft. Instrument flying school commander USAAF Lt. Col. Joseph B. Duckworth, a former airline pilot with Eastern Airlines who had developed instrument procedures for the carrier, bet his RAF students that he could safely fly into the storm and return. On 27 July 1943 he took out one of the trainers with 2nd Lt Ralph M. O'Hair navigating and flew it straight into the eye of the storm. After he returned safely, the base's only weather officer, 1st Lt William H. Jones Burdick, took over the navigator's seat and Duckworth flew into the storm (now over land) a second time, this time recording their observations and measuring temperatures within the storm. The flights demonstrated that hurricane reconnaissance flights were feasible. 24 days later, on 19 August 1943, the AAF weather station at Waller Field, Trinidad, recorded unusually low pressures and received a similar report from Beane Field on Saint Lucia. Together with a report of high winds to the east from a U. S. Navy aircraft landing at Naval Operating Base Trinidad, the data prompted the first weather reconnaissance mission to locate a previously unreported tropical disturbance, which was flown the next morning. The flight, made by a B 25 Mitchell medium bomber assigned to the 25th Bombardment Group (an anti submarine unit at nearby Edinburgh Field), proceeded from Waller to Barbados and then due east at altitudes between into the heart of Hurricane III of 1943. Using standard navigational position fixes, the mission plotted observations inflight on a chart as they proceeded and transmitted them to Beane Field for relay to Waller and Borinquen Field, Puerto Rico.

The 53rd WRS was activated on 7 August 1944 at Presque Isle Army Air Field, Maine, originally as the 3 WRS. In 1965 the 53rd WRS became the first squadron of the Air Weather Service to operate the WC 130 after its designation as such, and from Ramey flew the first WC 130 Hurricane Hunter mission on 27 August 1965, penetrating the eye of Hurricane Betsy. In the 1970s, after its move to Keesler, the 53rd participated in two "firsts" in the changing of regulations to permit women to be qualify as aircrew. Sgt. Vickiann Esposito became the first female dropsonde operator and possibly the first fully qualified aircrew member (excepting flight nurses) in Air Force history, approved by Headquarters Air Force in December 1973 as a waiver of the regulation prohibiting the assignment of women, over the initial objections of the commanding general of the Air Mobility Command. In October 1977, after the regulation had been rescinded, 1st Lt. Florence Fowler became one of the first two women to be rated as navigators (now combat systems officers). In 1976, the 815th Tactical Airlift Squadron of the Air Force Reserve, also based at Keesler, was redesignated the 815th Weather Squadron "Storm Trackers" and served as an associate squadron to the 53rd until 1987, when the 815th reverted to a tactical airlift unit because of reduced numbers of WC 130s. The Regular Air Force's 53rd WRS was inactivated in June 1991 for budgetary reasons and its assets and personnel transferred to the 815th TAS, which formed a flight to assume the weather recon mission while continuing its airlift role as well. On 1 November 1993, as a result of the impact of Hurricane Andrew the year before, the 53rd WRS was reactivated as a full time Air Force Reserve squadron to take over the weather reconnaissance mission from the 815th AS. The WC 130H airframes flown by the 53rd WRS were originally built in 1964–65 as C 130Es. Hurricane Andrew had also demonstrated a need for upgraded models to continue the Hurricane Hunter mission, and funding for ten replacements was authorized by Congress in FY1998. On 11 October 1999, the 53rd WRS received its first Lockheed WC 130, and flew its first hurricane mission in the new model on 16 November, into Hurricane Lenny. Problems with the new model, primarily damage to its composite material 6 bladed propellers from hail and ice and a lack of sensitivity in its color radar images, delayed its Initial Operational Capability until just before the 2005 hurricane season. The propeller problem was overcome by bonding a metal sleeve to the leading edge of each blade and the radar issue by changes in the radar software coding. While in conversion to the new airframe, the unit continued its mission of aerial weather reconnaissance and added a new weather related mission type in 2003, using the WC 130Js to drop buoys ahead of impending tropical storms. In 2004, the unit started training to support tactical airlift missions in addition to its weather mission. The landfall of Hurricane Katrina on 29 August 2005 caused devastating damage to Keesler. An estimated one third of the members of the parent 403rd Wing lost a home or had it extensively damaged.

When a tropical disturbance becomes suspect for development as a tropical or subtropical cyclone, the NHC assigns the system a temporary tracking ("Investigation") number and requests the 53rd WRS to determine if the winds are blowing in a counterclockwise rotation, indicating a "closed cyclonic circulation". This investigative mission is flown at an altitude of above the ocean surface in a pattern designated by the ARWO aboard the mission WC 130 based on observed conditions. The ARWO, using a stepped frequency microwave radiometer (SFMR, or "smurf"), continuously monitors ocean waves to determine wind speed and direction. The low level wind and pressure fields provide an accurate picture for NHC forecasters. Investigative missions are usually flown during daylight and may be timed to arrive in the investigative area at first light in the morning or last light in the evening. Weak pressure gradients, large areas of calm, and light winds in areas of heavy convective activity often make vortex fixes difficult to obtain in areas of weak circulation, challenging the skills of the crews. Once NHC determines that there is circulation within the disturbance, the mission becomes a sequentially numbered "fix" mission, conducted initially every six hours by rotating flights in cooperation with NOAA missions, and then at three hour intervals as the storm moves within specified parameters. During the "fix" mission, the ARWO directs the aircraft to the true center or vortex of the storm by monitoring the radar presentation, temperature, pressure, and mapping the wind fields as the aircraft makes left hand turns. Vortices determined by individual parameters including visual observation may not coincide at the same geographic location. Surface and upper level centers may be displaced by many miles. In order to make a reliable evaluation of its size and configuration, the crew flies through the disturbance using "Flight Pattern Alpha" consisting of intercardinal headings with legs in length. The Alpha pattern is repeated at least twice during the mission, which will typically see a penetration of the eye of the system four times. Patterns may also be adjusted to meet circumstances encountered in the system. In August 2011, as Hurricane Irene neared the Delmarva Peninsula between landfalls, a 53rd WRS ARWO directed a pattern with shorter legs and more rapid turnarounds because of the proximity of land, making seven center fixes in one flight.

A hurricane hunter aircraft was depicted in the 1974 movie Hurricane, penetrating a hurricane threatening the Gulf Coast in the Louisiana or Mississippi area. Spotting a small pleasure boat within the eye, they returned into the eye to guide a submarine, but the plane was lost in its attempt to exit a second time. The submarine rescued the boat's occupants.