WP 3D Orion how does it stay intact?

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Hengelo

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Hengelo
How do these hurricane hunting planes pass through the eyewall (and back) without getting absolutely obliterated?
Are they made of Mithril? 3k fpm climb rates sound great in the world of GA but how is that enough to survive Cat 5 Hurricanes?
Inquiring minds, and all that...
 
Hengelo said:
How do these hurricane hunting planes pass through the eyewall (and back) without getting absolutely obliterated?
Are they made of Mithril? 3k fpm climb rates sound great in the world of GA but how is that enough to survive Cat 5 Hurricanes?
Inquiring minds, and all that...
Click to expand...
I've wondered the same thing.
The weather aircraft I saw flying through Milton this time were the Orion and the C130J.
 
I thought the wind differences between inside & outside the eye were huge.
 
Hengelo said:
I thought the wind differences between inside & outside the eye were huge.
Click to expand...
It is, but it's not an instantaneous drop. There isn't some mystical 1" thick wall between the eye and the inner wall where winds go from 200+ kts to 5 kts. Remember the wings don't know they are flying at 100kts groundspeed, or 400kts groundspeed. The air flowing over them is the same assuming your IAS is held constant.
 
We don't see it in the hurricane hunter planes too often, but we overhaul C130 and P3 engines at my work. We do see some serious hail damage on the s-duct going to the engines from hail so these guys don't give much damn for flying thru weather. The planes are tough.
 
david.h said:
We don't see it in the hurricane hunter planes too often, but we overhaul C130 and P3 engines at my work. We do see some serious hail damage on the s-duct going to the engines from hail so these guys don't give much damn for flying thru weather. The planes are tough.
Click to expand...
When I was in high school, we got to tour Keesler AFB where the Air Force's Hurricane Hunters are based. For those that don't know, the AF flies the C-130s, and NOAA flies the P-3 and other aircraft for weather reconnaissance.

We asked the pilot giving the tours about the C-130, if it was modified (he claimed it wasn't much, just some hardening of leading edges, etc, and what it was like flying into these storms. This was around the time they were converting to C-130J models with the new composite props and they were testing ways to protect them.

He did relate a story of one sortie that almost ended in disaster. The C-130 ran into massive hail, taking out two engines with a third running hot, and almost not making it back to the nearest airport in Florida.
 
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