The dropsonde is a radiosonde that is thrown out of the aircraft flying at a high level, and allowed to descend by parachute, instead of being carried up by a balloon. There is a special listening post in the plane, where the data are recorded as the apparatus descends. The data are then put into the form of a message for transmission by the plane’s radio operator to the forecasting base. This work with the dropsonde is usually done by the radar operator, in addition to his other duties.
Much of this fascinating work is done by the Air Weather Service of the Air Force on routine daily flights, whether or not there is a tropical storm to be studied. As an example, they have made daily flights from Alaska to the North Pole and back, to keep tabs on the strange weather up there. In this way, there—and in other parts of the world—they get weather daily from places on land and sea where there are no weather stations, no merchant ships to report, and no people to act as weather observers. These flights are named after some bird common to the region. The North Pole flight is called “Ptarmigan”; others are called “Vulture,” “Gull,” etc. Special flights into tropical storms in the Atlantic and Caribbean are called “Duck” missions.
Some of these improvements in the hurricane-hunting methods of the Air Weather Service were mentioned in a report by Robert Simpson, a Weather Bureau meteorologist, who flew with the Air Force into “Hurricane George” in 1947. This was a big storm which appeared first over the ocean to the eastward of the Lesser Antilles. The squadron assigned to the job had been moved to Kindley Field, at Bermuda. Simpson saw Lieutenant Colonel Robert David, who was in command, and arranged for the flight in one of the new planes piloted by an experienced officer, Lieutenant Mack Eastburn.
Hurricane George, so-called by the Air Force boys, although such names were not then official, moved slowly and menacingly across the Atlantic, north of Puerto Rico, and headed toward Florida. Simpson was in it several times with the Air Force. On the first flight, they were in an old B-29 which had too many hours on the engines and had been a bad actor on previous missions, but this time it behaved like a lady and they picked up a great deal of useful information. On the next trip they had a new plane. Here is a part of Simpson’s story: