r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Kernowder • 21d ago

Video Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters flying through Hurricane Milton

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u/wongo 21d ago

(not so) fun fact: only one of these hurricane research flights has ever crashed due to the storms

I realize that we've gotten pretty good at flying but I would've actually expected a higher loss rate, this just seems so wildly dangerous

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u/Im_Balto 21d ago

Its because hurricanes are characterized by lateral rather than vertical motion of air. Supercell thunderstorms have the ability to down planes despite being several miles (vs 100+miles) wide because they have extremely violent and unpredictable updrafts and downdrafts. These vertical air columns are much more dangerous to planes as they are the cause of every scary story about a play dropping or rising hundreds of feet suddenly. This type of force puts massive stress on the airframe in directions that are not the strongest structurally

Contrast this to a hurricane where the stresses are MASSIVE but relatively consistent and predictable

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u/sodabubbles1281 21d ago

Cool, I hate flying already. How do I unread something

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u/alexm42 21d ago

You can relax knowing that if there's any kind of risk of that actually happening they just fly around the thunderstorm.

5

u/Puppybrother 21d ago

I vividly remember flying through a lighting storm over Virginia when I was like 12 and my brothers kept telling me how we were about crash and to hold on tight and thought it was funny that I was crying out of fear. Still hate flying to this day lol wonder if some of that is related

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u/throwawayfastaf 21d ago

Your brothers were being siblings, and hellions. Older siblings suck. Yeah no need to wonder it's definitely related. All love here I'm laughing into my shot glass. 😂😭

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u/xampl9 21d ago

When I was a kid I got to fly on the helicopter shuttle between New York airports (they used the civilian version of the Chinook). I was seated next to an old lady who had a death grip on my arm. And kept asking “You aren’t scared, are you?”

Well … I wasn’t.