Original subtitles

NARRATOR: This plane flies into the deadliest

weather on Earth.

I don't like this at all.

NARRATOR: The P-3 Orion has been

transformed from submarine hunter to hurricane hunter.

Look at that eyeball, huh?

It's billed as tough as a pickup truck.

You can abuse it, as long as you come back.

You take care of it.

NARRATOR: Thousands of lives and billions of dollars

are on the line with every mission.

[radio chatter]

MAN: Let me know if that works for you.

WOMAN: The camera doesn't do it justice.

Things go wrong.

They can go wrong pretty fast, pretty seriously.

So we've got to give this storm that respect.

NARRATOR: And it's up to this P-3 to fight its way straight

into the eye of the storm.

MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida.

From here, the US government deploys an elite science force

called the hurricane hunters.

At the center of this critical operation is the P-3

Orion, a military aircraft built

at the peak of the Cold War, now

fighting a different enemy.

This plane flies straight into the heart

of deadly hurricanes, facing weather conditions

no plane is meant to handle.

Al Giramonti is one of the aircraft's commanders.

This plane actually isn't reinforced structurally

at all to do this job.

It's just a well-built airplane to begin with.

NARRATOR: The P-3 Orion is a 1960s

Kennedy era aircraft that has stood the test of time.

For 30 years, the P-3 Orion was the best

defense against Russian nuclear submarines

lurking off US shores.

At the end of the Cold War, the reliable P-3s

remained in military and government service.

Two of them are hurricane hunters.

She's a great plane.

She's very forgiving.

She can definitely take a beating and keep going,

and it's just really a sturdier aircraft than most Jets.

Built this age.

Jets tend to have more flexible wings,

which is not really good for flying in the turbulence.

NARRATOR: Wes crouch.

Is crew chief.

He ensures the safety of the P-3 and everyone

on board for every flight.

The P-3, there was only two of these in the world,

and this was one of them.

A lot of horsepower, so you can move and get

in and out of places that you might

not be able to with a jet.

And also, the altitude is key.

Sturdy, propeller-driven, of course,

and the type of work we do is low down, low altitude work.

Jets don't do so well at low altitudes.

Propeller-driven aircraft do very well there.

NARRATOR: This P-3 Orion is nicknamed Kermit.

He's bristling with an array of instrumentation,

radar, and recording devices used to track hurricanes.

A long probe on its nose used to detect sudden wind gusts

distinguishes it from all other aircraft.

The P-3 Orion is a marvel of endurance.

Approximately 120 feet long and 34 feet tall,

with a wingspan of about 100 feet,

the Orion can stay in the air for over 16 hours.

That's about four times the duration of other aircraft

in its class.

The P-3s are operated by a US government agency called NOAA,

with hurricane forecasting and research centers

based in Miami, Florida.

The storm is moving.

It's picking up speed, and it's going to be--

NARRATOR: Shirley Murillo is lead meteorologist,

running the show for hurricane hunting.

NOAA is the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration,

and NOAA's responsible for forecasting hurricanes,

in particular with the National Hurricane Center.

And what we do is that we actually go out and fly

into the storms to collect valuable data that's

going to help the forecasters.

NARRATOR: NOAA gathers data from numerous sources,

including ground stations and satellites.

But when it comes to getting up close and personal

with these storms, there's no better tool

in their arsenal than the P-3.

NOAA's job is to predict when tropical storms turn

into deadly hurricanes and do it in time so that people

can be evacuated safely.

It's a dangerous and critical job.

Hurricanes do an average of $10 billion in damage every year

in the US.

The work is very important, and we

have specific state of the art instruments

that no other agency has.

The hurricane researchers struggle with a mystery

called rapid intensification.

Even as instruments become more sophisticated, how storms go

from category 1 to 5 is a complex problem

that science has yet to solve.

It's almost like a Rubik's cube, if you will,

on how to actually solve that mystery

of how storms intensify.

The forecast is for it to move to the north,

starting in just a few hours.

So it'll start to get out of that cold water that

is upwelled and into the warm water again

and should intensify.

NARRATOR: Rapid intensification is

the holy grail for this team.

If they can crack it, they could

save hundreds of thousands of lives

by issuing early evacuation orders.

The NOAA team is now watching a new hurricane that they

fear might become a giant.

Her name is Leslie.

Tropical Storm Leslie is making her way

westward across the Atlantic towards the US.

John Pavone oversees aerial reconnaissance at the National

Hurricane Center.

OK, Lexi, and here's the latest vortex message

from Leslie and 983 millibars.

And here's the latest wind profile.

The satellite gives us an estimate, which is great,

but the airplane can actually give us measurements.

And if you're going to do a forecast,

you want the best available data to do that forecast.

And the airplane is still superior to the satellite.

NARRATOR: Leslie is now 1,250 miles off the US,

sending all the signals that she

could turn into a juggernaut.

First of all, about our departure out of here

and rude weather and coming back,

expecting a very large envelope of winds

upwards of 50 to 60 knots once we descend down to 10,000.

In the last few hours, what we've seen

is a tendency for the convection here on the north

side to fire up pretty significantly

over that warmer water that we expected

to see north of the storm.

NARRATOR: Among her crew, pilot Justin Kibbey, working

his way toward a promotion.

He is penetrated hurricane eyewalls 23 times.

After another 27 penetrations, he gets elevated to P-3

hurricane aircraft commander.

Looking at, some people would say it's kind of crazy.

It goes against what all pilots are taught,

as far as flying into weather.

Every storm is different.

So no matter what you're going out there, expecting it

could have changed by the time you fly through it again.

So each pass is kind of the unknown.

NARRATOR: Justin is married with young children.

He knows that his wife lives in constant worry

because his line of work comes with a calculated risk.

She knows that we do it safely out there,

but there's always an unknown.

You're flying an airplane into a hurricane,

so there's always a risk.

The P-3 Orion contains workstations

for the meteorologists in the cabin behind the cockpit.

Ian Sears is chief weatherman on the aircraft

and flight director.

I take the game plan for what the scientists want to do,

and I translate that into an operational mission,

where we can execute what it is they're trying to accomplish.

NARRATOR: As the P-3 Orion readies

for its critical mission, scientists at NOAA's National

Hurricane Center in Miami determined that Leslie is now

a threat to Bermuda and Eastern Canada

and worth investigating in the P-3.

This is Hurricane Leslie that I'm

showing here on the screen.

It looks like this might be a potential target for us

to target.

I've got folks here on the phone and here on the room.

So it looks like the storm is now a hurricane strength,

and we might be able to capture some flights into this system.

NARRATOR: On the line is Paul Flaherty, mission coordinator.

OK, what I'll need from you is a crew list of your folks

who will be joining us and also--

MAN [ON PHONE]: On our end, we would just

need to make a decision pretty quickly

of some crew downstairs working on the aircraft right now.

We have to get them off that and on some crew rest.

It all depends on when you want to start flying.

How soon do you guys think you

would want to deploy eastward?

It looks now that depending on the latitude and longitude

of the system here, that we could

probably target the first flight to be 4:00

AM on Friday.

All right.

Any changes, give me a shout.

The flight schedule is always either 4:00 in the morning

or 4:00 in the afternoon.

This gives the scientists on the ground

time to interpret the P-3's data

for their morning and evening hurricane advisories.

The pressure is now on Kermit and his crew

to take on hurricane Leslie.

At 2:00 AM in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,

the hurricane hunter team gathers.

Operations have moved from headquarters in Tampa

to Fort Lauderdale to be closer to the storm.

The P-3 will now fly straight into a maelstrom

of wind, water, and lightning that few aircraft

are meant to handle.

We're headed out to Hurricane Leslie today.

The latest weather out of Fort Lauderdale, winds are calm,

good visibility, a few clouds at 2,100 feet.

People can take a look.

We're going to be coming in from the Northwest side.

We're going to be headed southeast.

We're going to take a turn up to the north.

And then on our inbound pass, if we have time,

we might try and go in and out of the eye a couple of times.

It's going to be a long day doing that.

Navigation, Chris.

Hey, we're taking off out of Fort Lauderdale.

We'll be round robin out of here.

Looking for a nine-plus hour flight.

We'll be 2, 2 and 1/2 hours inside the storm today,

far as distance from home for the flight engineer.

It's going to be over 1,000 miles.

Navigation-wise, we'll update the ditch

heading and the minimum altimeter setting on station.

Any questions?

NARRATOR: No questions.

Time to fly.

All right, good work, everybody.

Thanks.

NARRATOR: Co-pilot Justin Kibbe goes

through a last important ritual.

I call my wife.

I'll send her a text, like this morning.

It's a little bit early, so let her know that I

love her, love the kids.

I do carry a Saint Christopher's medal with me,

and I've had this in my flight suit pocket for all my years

in the Navy and my years here.

So you know, I just make sure that I got that on my person.

NARRATOR: At 4:00 AM, 16 people take off

in the P-3 for a nine-hour flight,

straight into the jaws of a hurricane.

A hurricane is gathering strength off the North America

East Coast, and it's up to a Lockheed P-3

Orion to fly directly into it to determine

whether it could be a killer.

Two scientists from Shirley Murillo's team in Miami, Dr.

John Garmash, and Dr. Robert Rogers

joined the P-3 crew to study Hurricane Leslie.

As Kermit makes his way toward the hurricane,

another P-3 is in pieces and a hangar

at Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

Her nickname is Miss Piggy.

She's every bit as high tech.

Though, like her Muppet namesake,

she's a little heavier than Kermit,

thanks to some extra equipment on board.

For the next year, Miss Piggy's being

overhauled, leaving Kermit to tackle the Hurricanes alone.

It takes a year because the P-3s need to be completely

overhauled every six years.

Clinton Batten is in charge of her overhaul.

It's about a one-year turnaround

time here in the hangar, from start to finish.

At the end, your aircraft will be not brand

new, better than brand new, back to the fleet, ready

for service.

NARRATOR: Hurricanes wreak havoc on any aircraft, even

the sturdy P-3s.

With Miss Piggy sidelined, this year's hurricanes

are Kermit's problem.

And scientists believe it will be one of the worst

seasons on record.

the.

P-3 Orion is now en route from Fort Lauderdale

to Hurricane Leslie, positioned 300

miles, southeast of Bermuda.

Al Giramonti is the mission commander.

I think the biggest piece of advice that I give to people

is almost to, kind of, calm their nerves

a little bit by telling them that 80% of the flight

is relatively benign.

It's mostly what you see here.

Occasionally, there will be some turbulence,

and especially when we get to the eyewall.

There's some turbulence.

But heck, I've been in some eyewalls that haven't have

been fairly smooth, in fact.

What penetrations in less than five degrees angle

of bank or less?

You know, the plane is never out of control.

We're always in positive control of the airplane.

It's just-- it can be a little more bumpy

than what people are used to.

NARRATOR: At one of two meteorologist stations

in the back, Ian Sears leads the science

side of the mission.

One of the things that we're really focusing on

is getting enough data that we can get into the models

quickly and reliably.

A hurricane can intensify rapidly.

And vice-versely, it can be a strong storm

and decrease in intensity rapidly.

That is the challenge that the forecasters at the National

Hurricane Center are really struggling with in the last 20

years is predicting those rapid intensification phases or even

the rapid de-intensification.

NARRATOR: The P-3's most powerful weapon

is its tail Doppler radar.

This huge array does a complete scan of the storm.

It sends this data real-time to Miami

to give scientists exact info about the structure

of the storm.

It's very unique.

It allows us to essentially take

like a CAT scan of the inner core of a hurricane.

It collect these tail Doppler measurements,

and then those measurements are transmitted

in real-time to the ground.

And that information is used for computer models

to predict both the track and the intensity

of tropical cyclones.

We want to give a good picture of what's

going on in the inner core.

And hopefully, that the models will take that picture

and be able to predict what's going to happen in the future.

NARRATOR: Ian inspects his scope, looking for signs

of the hurricane's edge.

As flight director, his job is to make sure that they don't

fly into zones of the hurricane that could tear the P-3 apart.

I'm looking at the radar, And i have no reflectivity.

And then red meaning very high reflectivity

will go from, maybe, nothing to red in an instant.

And that would just be a very strong indication

of very heavy updrafts, strong turbulence, something that

could overstress the aircraft.

And that's something we just don't want to do because if we

overstress the aircraft, then we

have to bring the aircraft down for maintenance,

get it inspected, make sure that the aircraft is

safe to fly for further crew.

NARRATOR: The next crucial piece of technology

is a device called a drop zone.

They run $700 a piece, and the P-3 drops an average of 30

on every mission.

They are weather balloons in a canister.

Take the sound.

We stick it in the tube here, then he checks the tube.

And when the flight director calls for it,

I'll hit this switch.

Valve will open up.

Difference between aircraft and outside pressure

actually sucks this thing right out.

NARRATOR: The dropsonde measures air pressure,

barometric pressure, air temperature, wind speed,

and wind direction.

It emits data every second as it falls through the layers

of the storm.

Like the Doppler radar, this data

is fed real timl-to the National Hurricane Center

in Miami, providing critical information

about the storm's intensity.

Now, Kermit is about to pierce the eyewall of the hurricane.

In Jacksonville, Florida, his counterpart, Miss Piggy,

is in a hangar for a year-long overhaul.

Leslie is happening during the heart of hurricane season,

so the timing could not be worse.

Yeah, right after making that call, we did get know,

hey, what-if scenarios.

NARRATOR: Paul Flaherty is chief

of the Aircraft Operations Center's Science Section.

Maintenance is one of those things

that is just like, to me, it seems just

like with your automobile.

It seems like problems come up at the worst times.

Historically, these are old planes,

and they do act up at times, but we have to keep

those aircraft running well.

NARRATOR: These P-3 Orions fly straight into a wall of wind,

water, and lightning, forces that would

tear most aircraft apart.

Already putting an aircraft in a very

hazardous environment into the hurricane eyewall.

We don't want to add to the risk

by not doing our jobs properly and making sure

that we can be as safe as possible.

NARRATOR: Program manager Clinton Batten knows

he is in a race against time.

Here we are.

We got Miss Piggy, NOOA N-43.

She's been here for approximately three months.

You can see it's under the wing shoring right now.

That's for removing and replacing the center

wing while it's in here.

You see, we got laser guys here.

They're looking at the airplane.

We're going to go through a laser chute.

That's to check the alignment of the wings.

NARRATOR: The team uses laser technology

to determine if after flying through hundreds

of hurricanes, Miss Piggy's wings are out of alignment.

Dan Marlow is the engineer in charge.

This particular airplane was out of tolerance

in one of the wingtips, but apparently, it's

been that way for a long time.

The wing additive tolerance could

happen during some of the severe flights

of this airplane.

NARRATOR: The alignment of the wings

is one of the most critical parts of the whole operation.

We're trying to get the airplane

as close as possible to the factory

perfect alignment condition.

Basically, the airplane will be flying at its optimum

design conditions.

Right here on today's shoot, we got

to check that the wind tips-- the height of the wind tips.

Engineers are going to adjust the wind tips,

so they're in a relaxed condition.

So when they install the center tank, there is no stress.

Marvin has got it set up there, and we're

going to turn on the camera, which sees the reflector,

then it locks onto the reflector.

So I found the reflector.

I lock onto it.

Now, we got a green light, so we're ready to to take

a measurement. Got it.

Got it.

NARRATOR: If they're off by the smallest fraction of an inch--

One's down about an 1/8 inch, and one's up about 50,000.

NARRATOR: --Miss Piggy could get her wings

torn off by a hurricane.

The on the left hand's up about 48,000.

The one on the right hand is down about 126,000.

This is where we get engineering

to look at the numbers and decide if they

need to make any adjustments.

A little bit of adjustment on the right wing.

You got to bring it up on the right wing.

Yeah.

NARRATOR: While scrutinizing the plane,

the team finds evidence of a lightning strike

that posed a danger to everyone on board.

And if you look inside, you can see that it's all burnt.

It's got soot on it here.

NARRATOR: Strikes like this one are rare because the P3 is

covered with static guards that are meant to draw electricity

away from the hull.

And the crew is trained to avoid

the heaviest lightning areas.

The lightning strike occurred on the top of the leading

edge of the elevator.

That's the aft end of the aircraft,

and it occurred on the top side, where we

don't normally get up to see.

So that would be located above us here on the top side

of the elevator.

NARRATOR: Now, it's up to Wes and his crew

to see if the lightning did severe damage to the

aircraft's electrical systems.

Lightning isn't the only threat.

Seawater also poses a surprising risk

in the form of huge salt plumes that

rise from the sea surface.

Five years ago, we were flying out of Saint John's

Newfoundland, and we lost three engines,

a triple engine failure in three minutes

in this airplane.

We flew through a salt plume, and nobody ever

flown through a salt plume before,

and then we started losing engines.

Because we'd always assume that the salt layer

stayed at 1,200 feet.

We were at 3,000 feet, but now they

figure that these high winds brought the salt layer

up as high as 8,000 feet.

And we lost three engines in three minutes.

NARRATOR: With just one engine left,

the crew hobbled to Newfoundland, barely

escaping with their lives.

And if we would have ditched, we

wouldn't have made it anyway.

I mean, there were 90-foot seas.

It was at night.

Very intense.

NARRATOR: Another big problem is corrosion.

We've already removed the engines.

We've removed the landing gear.

That's for inspections underneath the wheel well,

the lower planks as corrosion checks due to the environment

this aircraft flies in.

You can imagine this airplane flying

dead on into hurricanes, more salt, more corrosion.

When the plane comes in, we have to inspect

this butt line here.

And if we see any damage or corrosion or anything,

we'll go ahead and replace it.

So we have to make sure all these holes are clean

and round and all deburred.

And there's no potential for cracks or anything

in the future.

Good.

NARRATOR: And sometimes, the most mundane problems

cause the biggest headaches.

A mechanism that raises one of the plane's antenna

is worn out.

Without it, the P-3 Orion cannot

communicate crucial data to the hurricane center in Miami.

So what they discovered here is that the drive mechanism is

worn, and that can create some felt

vibration in the airframe.

So we have to replace that assembly.

And it's looking like we'll probably

have to replace more than one.

NARRATOR: Finding a part for an older rare plane,

like the P-3, is not easy.

And unless Wes can get it, Miss Piggy may

not return to her job on time.

That's going to create a challenge for us that we're

going to have to solve before this aircraft goes

back into action.

Keeping these P-3 Orions in the air, I mean,

they're 20, 30, 40 years old.

They're aging.

I mean, look at us, we're not as good

as we were when we were 18 and 19.

Airplanes are the same way.

They're just stressed. They're cracked.

They're being bended.

They're being twisted.

So we just have to maintain them stay on top of it,

be vigilant, and make sure it's good.

NARRATOR: At NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami,

meteorologists continue to keep a close watch

on hurricane Leslie, as she creeps closer to Bermuda.

And they need critical data from the P-3

to complete their analysis.

With Miss Piggy off duty, it's up to Kermit

to do double duty.

And Kermit is facing possible trouble ahead.

A P-3 Orion called Kermit has a dangerous mission--

to fly into a massive hurricane that is threatening

to slam into Eastern Canada.

These hurricane hunters are going

against instinct and conventional pilot training.

Just really never get complacent because, as pilots,

we're trained to really stay away from bad weather,

so it's a natural apprehension for us to want

to steer clear of this.

But it is dangerous, so we've got

to give this storm that respect, no matter

how routine it may seem.

NARRATOR: Co-pilot Justin Kibbe allows Kermit to do his job

by turning on the autopilot.

He knows that inside the hurricane,

the autopilot is the safest and smoothest ride.

These winds in the storm want to push you up and pull

you down at a certain point.

So we engage the autopilot and take

the hold off our autopilot and just don't fight the controls.

Just let the winds do what they want to and push you up,

pull you down, and just, kind of,

ease the plane back to where it needs to be.

So it's like riding a wave or riding a roller coaster.

I'd tell you, to be honest with you,

sometimes, when I'm in the back,

I may get a little queasy, too.

Because the further after you go, that's where the tail is,

so it kind of, you know, wags back and forth, as we're

flying through the storm.

And also, back there, the temperature

may not be just right.

You don't have a lot of windows for visual references.

NARRATOR: The P-3 bumps along in the rough swirling winds.

Leslie is a huge storm.

With a 190-mile radius, it will take more than three hours

to reach the middle.

As they search for the eye of the storm,

the scientists get to work, trying

to solve the mystery of the deadly explosive force

called rapid intensification.

But what's kind of interesting to me is,

I don't know if it's disturbing is.

I mean, you look at these profiles,

and you're seeing winds on the order of 75 knots.

You know, some hurricanes can increase from a category 1,

on the Saffir-Simpson scale, to a category 3 in, you know,

12 hours or 24 hours, but others don't.

So is there something about the inner core structure

of these hurricanes that do undergo rapid intensification

that we can detect with, for example, the Doppler radar,

and compare that with ones that don't

undergo rapid intensification.

NARRATOR: Leslie sending strange signals

to the Doppler radar.

They can't find the eye of the storm.

So what I'm looking at on this radar here is,

I've got rain bands that are wrapping

around hurricane Leslie.

NARRATOR: Disorganized storms like this lack

the more predictable structure of storms with clearly

organized eyes and pose a huge challenge

to the P-3 and her crew.

I'm looking for a donut here on the radar.

And here's the plan.

This is we're in the middle here,

and this is where we're headed.

And there's nothing here that represents

an eye of a hurricane.

Unfortunately, we're not seeing a whole lot on radar.

And what that means is the radar

is not going to help us find the center.

I'm going to have to rely on our wind directions

to guide us in.

NARRATOR: Finally, they find the center,

but there is no eye.

It appears Leslie is no longer a hurricane,

but a tropical storm.

The cockpit crew is surprised.

Her eye, as they saw, was like 60 knots

at the surface, which ain't a hurricane.

NARRATOR: But not as surprised as the scientists

in the back of the P-3.

So what we've been finding today

is our flight level winds have been

maximum of about 60 knots.

And that's not hurricane strength

that we've been finding surface winds of about 50 to 55 knots,

also not hurricane strength.

NARRATOR: The tail Doppler radar sends data

to the National Hurricane Center in Miami,

so they can get their first real-time

up close look at Leslie.

The Hurricane Center has been relying on the satellites

to estimate what the intensity of the storm is.

So these are the first direct measurements from

an aircraft into Leslie's.

NARRATOR: Leslie is still over cold water.

If she takes off and finds warmer water to fuel her,

she could reach category 4.

Despite Leslie's diminished state,

they continue their research.

And after seven hours in the air,

the crew is getting tired.

It's about 9:15.

We left Tampa at 2:00 AM.

And being the first flight, our bodies

aren't quite used to be on this this rhythm

yet, this circadian rhythm.

So I think everybody's pretty tired right now.

But with you know, the sun's up.

Catch the next wave of that circadian rhythm

and start feeling good about lunchtime.

NARRATOR: Justin still got his mind

set on hitting 50 penetrations, qualifying him for hurricane

aircraft commander.

He's halfway there.

But now, that Leslie's weakened,

this flight is disqualified.

That 50 is the number we want to get to.

So tropical depressions don't count,

so you know, we'll try again the next day,

if it does maintain its working strength

or, you know, goes back down and comes back up.

It's just sitting in one area right now,

so it's basically sucked all the energy out of that water.

Once it starts moving, it's got the possibility

of getting some warmer waters and possibly strengthening,

so time will tell.

That's kind of frustrating.

We're this close to being a hurricane

right above the surface, but nope, at the surface.

NARRATOR: The data gathered on this flight

will be on the NOAA website within minutes.

Four times a day, at 11:00 AM, that's where we're at now.

The National Hurricane Center puts out an advisory,

and they're going to take the data that we collected today

and give a new advisory.

Something that they've been finding

is that the stationary system has caused the waters

beneath it to cool down.

And warm waters are the driving force that is

going to fuel the hurricane.

And with the waters cooling down,

the hurricane no longer has the energy

source to maintain its intensity or even strengthen.

So that's a lot of the reason why Hurricane Leslie is

now a Tropical Storm Leslie.

NARRATOR: This is critical information

that helps NOAA advise people on the storm's path.

This is Canadian Hurricane Center.

Hi, good morning.

This is Lexi from the Hurricane Center.

And we are going to keep the system as a tropical storm.

NARRATOR: They still need to be vigilant,

but the good news is that the storm seems to be weakening.

- Just moving too slow. - Exactly.

Yeah.

NARRATOR: Now, the Miami team has the most

accurate data possible.

They can get to work, trying to build

an exact weather model of Leslie

to predict her intensity and path.

This is Tropical Storm Leslie.

Today, that's going to, probably,

affect Newfoundland tomorrow.

NARRATOR: The NOAA P-3 Orion, a workhorse for over 30 years,

has performed perfectly.

It's one of the only planes in the world tough enough

to do this dangerous job.

It's built as tough as a pickup truck.

You can abuse it, as long as you come back.

You take care of it.

Give it some good TLC.

It's going to go right back out and do

the same mission for you.

And I think it handles great at sea.

You know, I've been flying it for, you know, 12 years.

It's great to fly.

It's very responsive to our inputs.

It handles like a dream.

NARRATOR: They now return to Fort Lauderdale.

And after a quick turnaround, they will

pay a second visit to Leslie.

This time, with the help of their smaller sidekick

named Gonzo.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

After a 16-hour turnaround, the hurricane hunters

are ready to take their P-3 Orion back out to fly

into a storm named Leslie.

The data gathered on their first flight

showed Leslie was no longer a hurricane,

but a tropical storm.

At NOAA's Hurricane Research Division,

Shirley Murillo and Dr. Robert Rogers

plan another flight to study this large but

stationary storm.

This will be the first time that

we actually get a storm in P-3 and the G-4 at the same time.

This is pretty exciting.

Very exciting.

Yeah.

NARRATOR: They've learned that Leslie is

still sitting over cold water.

And once it starts to move over warmer water,

it could, again, escalate into a hurricane.

They're going back to find out what's happening.

Flight number 2 for this grew into tropical Storm Leslie.

I'll turn it immediately over to Rich for the weather.

Once we get into the storm environment,

obviously, we'll be dealing with a lot of convection,

especially on the north side of the storm.

Actually, by satellite, more than what we had yesterday.

So expect to see the belt sign coming on a little bit more.

The storm has moved a little bit north.

It has gone over some warmer water

and has started to indicate that it

might be firing up again.

NARRATOR: Kermit is once again ready to intercept the storm.

On today's mission, it will be accompanied

by its much smaller sidekick, a Gulfstream 4 named

Gonzo, the tiny daredevil.

The Gulfstream 4 is a fast, sleek flying

science lab, about 78 feet long and over 24 feet high.

The G-4 has a swept-back wingspan of almost 78 feet,

reducing drag and increasing speed.

Kermit and Gonzo will work in tandem,

with Kermit inside the storm and Gonzo flying around

and, at times, above it.

I like that breeze coming up.

It feels good.

NARRATOR: Commander Jeff Hagen is one of the plane's

two pilots on this mission.

Very unique G-4 acquired for NOAA for doing

hurricane surveillance.

In the past couple of years, we've

integrated a tail Doppler radar onto the plane,

and we're very fortunate to have

great mechanics here at the aircraft operations center.

And the guys keep it pristine, and it looks

just like the day we got it.

NARRATOR: Since the 1980s the Gulfstream 4

has made its mark as a high-end corporate transport,

but Gonzo is one of a kind.

Well, the primary difference between this one and what

you'd see on a ramp at any commercial airport

is the tail Doppler radar assembly

that our science and engineering divisions

installed on the airplane.

It gives them a vertical profile

of the storms as they're flying it out the tooth.

It's rather unique and still kind

of in an experimental stage.

But from what I understand, works extremely well.

NARRATOR: For the first time ever,

Gonzo and Kermit will attempt to share

data from new tail Doppler equipment

attached to each aircraft.

While the P-3 can fly into the storm,

the G-4 can get high above it and get

an overview of the hurricane that the P-3 cannot.

If it works, these Doppler radar systems

may help these scientists determine what

turns a storm into a killer.

Once again, the hurricane hunters take

flight to intercept Leslie.

The P-3 Orion flies from Fort Lauderdale

to the open Atlantic, 250 miles southeast of Bermuda.

Approaching your altitude.

Got it.

Yeah.

NARRATOR: It takes them three hours to reach the storm.

So I'm going to have to turn the airplane a little bit

to help me find the center.

That's going to help me get to that zero wind.

I can't rely on radar anymore because I

can't see any evidence of what would be an eye.

So I'm going to have to rely on winds

to help me find the center.

We're in the center.

This is a very big and broad storm.

So basically, what we have here is a very big storm,

with its mass spread way out.

It's like a figure skater that has

their arms spread out as far as they can,

with dumbbells in their hands.

And it's having a hard time contracting

and getting that spin to accelerate and go faster.

So we're not really finding any evidence that this is

going to be a hurricane today.

NARRATOR: As the P-3 scans Leslie, the much faster

Gonzo takes off 90 minutes later

and heads for the storm with an ETA of less than two hours.

Aircraft is tight, commander.

No warnings.

We're good to go.

NARRATOR: Jason Mansour is commander on the G-4's

important mission.

It is ingrained in us that weather is dangerous,

and we definitely take that heart in our operations.

But sometimes, you need to know what

a hurricane is doing, what a tropical storm is doing.

That involves going into harm's way through the worst weather

on Earth to obtain the best possible data.

NARRATOR: Now, both planes are at the stretch

of the Atlantic, where Leslie has stalled.

The P-3 flies into the storm.

The smaller and more fragile G-4

encircles and flies above it, gathering

data at its edges to compare with that coming from the P-3.

The G-4 is atop, P-3 down low.

With the goal of this flight, on Leslie's specifically,

is to compare the data from our tail Doppler radar

to the P-3's tail Doppler radar to make sure that we're seeing

the same things or that we're seeing

very, very different things.

Either one is useful to us, as we

continue to improve the data that we obtain

on these mission flights.

NARRATOR: Jason knows that the G-4

is not as robust as the Orion and can

be torn apart in the winds.

It's also a jet, and jet engines

can flame out in the hurricane strength rain.

The real air is very limited.

I don't care if you go in 100 knots or 400 knots,

if things go wrong, they can go wrong

pretty fast, pretty seriously.

NARRATOR: Leslie is mostly a smooth ride for the crew

of the P-3, but the occasional pocket

bounces them around, giving co-pilot Justin

Kibbe an uncomfortable jolt.

I'm glad I didn't have a heart

monitor on because I'd have probably

gone through the roof.

NARRATOR: Back on the G-4, drop zones are released.

Weather canisters that send real-time data

back to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Data coming into both aircraft is crystal clear.

Leslie is no longer a threat.

Right now, Leslie is, kind of,

a steady state, if not declining category

1 hurricane.

It's sitting over the same water,

and the water beneath the surface

is a little bit cooler than what's at the surface.

So until it moves off this plot of ocean that it's sitting on,

it's not going to have the fuel to start

to intensify as it moves off to the North Atlantic.

NARRATOR: At the hurricane research division in Miami,

Shirley Murillo and her team receive the data.

All this is from today, yeah.

NARRATOR: What they discover sends a sigh of relief

through the room.

Ian Sears is right.

Leslie is weakening.

The two planes have proven to be the best combined

tool for tracking hurricanes.

I really like the combination of the G-4 with the P-3,

a coordinated flight.

NARRATOR: Shirley's team analyzes

the data from the two planes.

It's early days, but it looks like Kermit and Gonzo working

together make a powerful team.

Right now, it's still in a research mode.

And so now, when the G-4 is down on the ground,

we can collect the data.

We'll look at both of the data sets,

and we'll see what we get.

Hopefully, it will be something good.

NARRATOR: In Newfoundland, Leslie hits

with half the expected force.

Accurate forecasts using data gathered by the NOAA hurricane

hunters means there are no unnecessary evacuations

and no casualties, but now an even bigger storm

is on the horizon, one that will

put the team to one of their greatest tests in history.

The 2012 hurricane season is a busy one.

10 hurricanes keep the P-3 Orion

and its team of hurricane hunters on constant watch.

The convection isn't looking too good this morning.

We'll see what we get when we get out there.

Maybe the dry air intrusion will get a little bit

of turbulence out of that, but we'll see what

happens when we get out there.

NARRATOR: The most devastating storm of the season

was Hurricane Sandy.

Sandy met with two other storm systems,

threatening the safety of thousands on the east coast

of North America.

It's what one meteorologist dubbed a frankenstorm.

For decades, this is the kind of challenge the hurricane

hunters have faced.

They conducted 10 grueling back to back

flights into one of the worst storms in history.

Do you have any questions on whether

or what we're doing today?

NARRATOR: Thanks to the work of the P-3

Orion called Kermit and the NOAA team,

predictions were made of exactly where

and when Sandy would hit.

And with the help of Gonzo, the Gulfstream G-4,

the forecasters made an accurate prediction

of the hurricane's intensity.

As a result, massive evacuation orders

were issued on the coastal areas

of New York and New Jersey.

It's incredible, incredible rush,

but you're doing very, very valuable data.

You're doing it as safely as you possibly can while going

through a hurricane.

And like I said, it's very much a team

environment and team success.

NARRATOR: Justin Kibbe made six more hurricane penetrations--

Are we ready to get the penny?

Awesome.

All right.

We did it.

NARRATOR: --putting him that much closer to hurricane

aircraft commander.

I've always had a love of aviation.

I've always wanted to be a pilot.

I've always wanted to fly.

I've always been the kid who likes to go out in the rain,

and you know, watch the storms roll in.

So I combined the two of flying and getting

to go into these amazing storms that not

everybody in the world gets to do and not many people at all.

NARRATOR: Timely evacuation saved thousands of lives

during Hurricane Sandy.

Thanks to the P-3 Orions and the Gulfstream 4's

pinpoint accurate data.

But Kermit and Gonzo had to do all the missions themselves,

with their counterpart, Miss Piggy, undergoing an overhaul.

This deadly hurricane season made

it even more urgent to get Miss Piggy back in the air.

The problem is, nature never ever goes along with our plan.

So very often, the minute we put the planes

down, something changes.

And we get the phone call, saying,

how quickly could you have these planes up and going?

NARRATOR: No one knows what nature has in store.

But if all goes according to plan,

Kermit and Gonzo will be joined by Miss Piggy

next hurricane season to help keep

the public out of harm's way.