WC-130J
The Lockheed WC-130 is a high-wing, medium-range aircraft used for weather reconnaissance missions by the United States Air Force. The aircraft is a modified version of the C-130 Hercules transport configured with specialized weather instrumentation including a dropsonde deployment/receiver system and crewed by a meteorologist for penetration of tropical cyclones and winter storms to obtain data on movement, size and intensity. The USAF's Air Weather Service (AWS) received its first C-130 Hercules in 1962 to conduct air sampling missions in the wake of a resumption of atmospheric weapons testing by the Soviet Union in September 1961. The Air Force was then in the process of replacing its fleet of WB-50 weather reconnaissance aircraft with WB-47E jets but by 1965 the AWS had decided it would better served by the WC-130 in the manned weather reconnaissance role. Since that year the Air Force and Air Force Reserve have operated a total of 50 WC-130s in five variants. The WC ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

53d Weather Reconnaissance Squadron
The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, also known by its nickname, Hurricane Hunters, is a flying unit of the United States Air Force, and "the only Department of Defense organization still flying into tropical storms and hurricanes." 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 i ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]