While those living in areas affected by hurricanes make preparations, Lieutenant Commander Nathan Kahn—a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Corps—straps into the commander’s seat of an airborne research platform: the four-engine, turboprop Lockheed WP-3D, equipped with tail Doppler radar. Kahn is one of the “Hurricane Hunters” tasked with gathering data to help the National Hurricane Center make predictions by flying into hurricanes. Other aircraft missions study climate, pollution, air chemistry, and winter storms or research the Arctic, severe thunderstorms, tornadic supercells, and tropical storms.
“My mission with the P-3 and the crew onboard is to fly into the storm, find low-level centers, and collect data,” notes Kahn, adding that radar systems and dropsonde technologies are employed. The aircraft may include two pilots, one navigator, a meteorologist/flight director, a flight engineer, an electronics engineer, two electronics technicians, and additional aircrew, scientists, and observers. “As the aircraft commander, my job is to keep the aircraft right-side up and moving in the right direction, which can be challenging in and of itself sometimes,” says Kahn.
What He Does Day to Day
Kahn’s crew works on a 12-hour-on, 12-hour-off cycle when storms are brewing during the June 1 to November 30 hurricane season. “We run two missions a day. I’m either at home trying to sleep or on the airplane tracking outbound to get into a storm and do the research,” says Kahn.
National Hurricane Center weather researchers track the modeling forecast and will deploy a NOAA unit from Florida or one from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (the US Air Force Reserve’s Hurricane Hunters) during a threat of landfall to the US or partner nations. Airborne tracking may begin in the Caribbean region for the ability to reach further out into the Atlantic and track a storm sooner.
At other times, the National Hurricane Center deploys to run some of its experimental data collection and start working on a storm. “The hurricane season is a game of wait and hurry and hurry and wait,” notes Kahn. “We’re constantly looking at forecasts to give us an idea of how busy we’re going to be in the next three to five days, a typical storm cycle.”
During times without storms, Kahn supports the Aircraft Operations Center in tasks including spearheading the scheduling and training departments.
What Led Him to This Line of Work
Before starting with NOAA in May 2015, Kahn served with the US Navy for 12 years following his graduation from the US Naval Academy. He accrued almost 3,000 flight hours in the P-3 Orion aircraft on missions throughout six continents, earning numerous awards. “A Naval officer’s career tapers out of flying and into more administrative, leadership, and strategic work, which is important, but not what I was inclined to do,” says Kahn. “I’m best suited with a small team, accomplishing a mission in a situation I like to call being an operator. That’s what I loved about my time in the Navy. Moving to NOAA allowed me to continue doing that. I’ve been flying this airframe for so long that there isn’t a lot I haven’t done with it, and flying into hurricanes was one of those things.”
What He Likes Best About His Work
Kahn says he enjoys flying the airplane on a beautiful, wind-free, cloudless day. That’s not too often, he says, “which is one of the reasons it’s a pleasure. I also love that we fly into storms. Flying in storms is dangerous and can be scary, but somebody has to do it. I take great pride in the fact we’re accomplishing that mission and providing that service.”
“We’re flying into a hurricane—I don’t think we need any more challenges!” he says. Kahn responds to the notion some people express that doing so is “crazy”: “We’re trained to do it and we prepare to do it the right way. I will tell you I am scared every time we fly into the storm—typically not in the moment when we’re doing the work because a lot of focus and mission-based training and accomplishment takes over. But if somebody tells you they’re not scared before, during, or after storms, those are the ‘crazy’ ones.”
