In many respects, the weather officer, or “flight aerologist” as they call him in the Navy, is the key man on the mission. The plane is out for a series of weather reports and it is up to him to decide which is the best way to get what he wants. Within the limits of operational safety, his decisions are accepted. It is his job to keep track of the weather in every detail. He has a complicated form containing many columns in which he enters figures taken from code tables to fit the various elements—flying conditions, time, location, kinds of clouds, heights of cloud bases and tops, direction and distance of unusual phenomena, rain, turbulence, temperature, pressure, altitude, and every other conceivable detail that might be of use to the forecaster on shore. If he put this in plain language, the message would be as long as a man’s arm and the radio operator might never get it off. There is an international code in figures for this purpose which makes it possible to put a very large amount of data in a brief message. And this is a continuous operation. Hardly does the aerologist get one message into the hands of the radio operator until he begins another one. It is his job to keep the pilot informed of the correct altitude. The weatherman is seated right out in front where the oncoming weather beats a terrific hubbub against the Plexiglas.
The radar operator may be one of the navigators. He keeps his eye on the scope. Many queer shapes come and go as the plane speeds along and the radar man has to know how to interpret them. He keeps the weather officer informed. Also, it may be his job to help the navigator guide the pilot around places where turbulence is likely to be excessive. Now and then, he or another crew member releases a dropsonde to get temperature, pressure, and humidity in the air between the plane and the sea.
The photographer has his troubles. Conditions are far from favorable and oftentimes impossible for taking pictures. One of his important jobs, and one that has been done exceedingly well by Navy photographers in the squadron headquartered at Jacksonville, is to get photos of the sea surface in winds of various forces from eight knots up to one hundred thirty knots. These photos are extremely useful in estimating the force of the wind by watching the effects on the sea.
In addition, there is an engineer. He looks after the overall operation of the plane and watches the many instruments on the panel. Usually he is a man of long experience who has worked up from crew chief. He adjusts power to fit the fuel load. If an engine catches on fire, he knows how to put it out. If a bail-out is imminent, he is the man on the job. Sitting behind the second pilot, he has his restless eyes concentrated on the mechanical equipment. All of these men on the plane work as a team, any of them being ready to help somebody else in an emergency, and alert and resourceful to take quick action when the unexpected happens, and it often does.
The crews are usually organized as follows: The senior pilot is in command—in the Navy he has the title of “Plane Commander” and the other pilot is the “Co-Pilot.” In the Air Force the man in charge is the “Aircraft Commander” and his assistant is “Pilot.” In any case, both of these men are heavily engaged in keeping the aircraft under control when the weather is rough. The pilots, together with two other men, the engineer and the crew chief, keep the plane in the air, though these latter two jobs may be combined, in which case the crew chief has an assistant—a flight mechanic.
Under the crew chief, or crew captain, there is one exceedingly important duty—watching the engines. On each side a man looks constantly for signs of trouble—oil leaks, fire, or whatever. These two men are sometimes called “scanners.” White smoke or black smoke, as the case may be, on issuing from an engine signals a dire emergency. It may be only one or two minutes from incipient fire to explosion, and action must be immediate to put the fire out or correct other troubles. It is a very definite strain on the scanners to be alert every instant on a long flight, and various members of the crew may be rotated on these jobs. On routine daily reconnaissance in non-hurricane weather, the Air Force flights are long and some of the men feel decided relief on taking a hurricane mission, which is rougher but usually much shorter.
With this training and organization of the crews, most of the emergencies are met quickly and efficiently. Now and then, the unexpected happens, however, as is evident in the following instances.
In September, 1947, a number of missions by the Navy and Air Force had secured data in Hurricane George and the big storm was headed ominously toward Florida. An Air Force crew was in it on September 16 and had been in trouble. There were gasoline leaks, several fires, and engines acting up. They decided it was an emergency and set course for MacDill Field. Everything went well until they approached the field for a landing. There, in the middle of the runway, sat a big turkey buzzard. In the twinkling of an eye, when they were only fifty feet away, the great bird took off and smashed into the leading edge of the right wing. The impact made a sizable dent and the wing dipped. After six tries, the pilot skillfully got the plane down without an accident but the crew was more upset by this bird than by the average hurricane.
Sometimes the unexpected leads to disaster. One of the most unfortunate of these incidents occurred at Bermuda in 1949. There was a report of a disturbance in the western Caribbean on November 3. It was late in the season, but a few very bad hurricanes have struck in this region in November, so the forecasters at Miami asked for reconnaissance and the request was passed to the Air Force at Kindley Field, in Bermuda. It was afternoon when the message came. A B-29 with a crew of thirteen men was cleared for a flight through the storm area and thence to Ramey Air Force Base, in Puerto Rico, where they were to spend the night.
The plane took off at 6:17 P.M., Bermuda time, climbed to ten thousand feet and leveled off. Almost immediately the crew saw an oil leak in the No. 1 engine and it was feathered. The radio operator got in touch with the tower and airways and the aircraft commander prepared to return to the field. The pilot brought the plane over the island and reported at four thousand feet, descending. But just at that time a Pan American Stratocruiser was cleared to land. The B-29 circled and reported at one thousand five hundred feet at a distance of seven miles west of the island. Next the plane was four miles out, coming straight in at one thousand feet and was cleared to land on Runway 12.