When he gets the wind speed to suit him, he brings the wind between the starboard quarter and dead astern and flies ahead to the point where he thinks he has the best place to go for the center. According to Commander N. Brango, one of the Navy’s top specialists in hurricane navigation by air, “Choosing the proper run-in spot is tricky business, for it is the point at which the wind is the reciprocal of the storm’s direction of motion. The pilot must watch for this point carefully, as he may pass it quickly; if he does there is imminent danger that the drift may carry the aircraft into the most severe quadrant of the hurricane.” So the pilot goes into the center without wasting any time. Delay results in fatigue and it is important that the men be freshly alert. The pilot puts the wind broad on the port beam and he cannot possibly miss the eye. The next thing, the plane is in that amazing region where the sea boils, the breezes are light or missing altogether, the rain has ceased and the clouds are arranged in circular tiers, like giant spectators in a colossal football stadium.
This is a marvelous place. The crew is at ease. Coffee goes around. In the last few moments before coming into the eye, the craft leaks like a sieve. Everything is wet but the squirting from a hundred crevices in the plane ceases in the center and now it is possible to do some paper work. The aerologist is busy with the weather code and the radio man begins pounding out a message. They circle around. The pilot takes them up to maybe five thousand feet altitude and back down again, circling around.
And then the time comes to leave the center. The pilot calls a warning over the phone and there are two or three wisecracks. But this departure from the eye is dangerous. The plane begins to catch the shear of powerful winds around the center. Here a man can get thrown around violently and be seriously hurt, if he fails to get a good grip on something or neglects his safety belt.
Now the pilot sets the wind broad on the starboard beam and both he and the co-pilot hang onto the controls. This is rough going and there may be some surprises, but after a little they are out of the big wind circle and the navigator thinks the gales are down to something like fifty knots. The pilot sets course for the Navy airfield and the staccato notes of the radio continue to carry vital weather information to the forecasters. On this subject, Captain Robert Minter, an old hand, at one time in charge of aerology in the Office of Naval Operations, is full of enthusiasm. He guaranteed that the Navy could get a ship off the ground on a hurricane probe within an hour after the Weather Bureau forecaster asked for the information.