A-10 to take on new role investigating thunderstorms

About thirty years ago one of our pilots (McDonnell Douglas Co.) moved to NASA to fly an armored T-28 through thunderstorms.  I subsequently read an article about that program.  Seems like they are still doing thunderstorm penetration studies !

Way to go! Wonder what paint scheme that will have; maybe something similar to, say a WP-3D Orion?

I don't know GM, I think I rather be on Tierra firme!

EC-121's too.

There was a pretty good story last month on national news. They interviewed an Air Force Airman (cute young woman) who had flown through Hurricane Patricia, from Biloxi.

I assume it was on a C-130.

"What was it like in the storm?".

"We entered and the aircraft dropped about 1,000 feet right away. That's the most we felt. When we flew through the eye it was calm the firat time but increasing turbulent after that. True wind speeds of 150 mph."

"The first time? How many times did you fly through the storm?".

"Three".

Some folks have the fun jobs!

That is quite interesting. My first thought was hail damaging the engines but they said that up to 3" hail did not produce engine damage. I guess the hail up there has not fully hardened or the fan blades just schread it.

I saw a similar thing recently about P-61s.  They were a squadron that was apparently the first thunderstorm researchers, and they had really neat markings.  I've considered doing one of those if I can find the right P-61.

That would be quite a ride. I'd do it!