WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:05.120 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today 2 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:08.320 I will be reading from a special issue of Smithsonian 3 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:13.880 Magazine called America at two fifty the Revolutionary Spark. As 4 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:16.839 a reminder, Radio Eye is a reading service intended for 5 00:00:16.879 --> 00:00:19.960 people who are blind or have other disabilities that make 6 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:23.320 it difficult to read printed material. Please join me now 7 00:00:23.399 --> 00:00:27.559 for the first article, titled When a team of meteorologists 8 00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:31.879 and combat pilots set out to understand thunderstorms, They made 9 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:36.079 flying safer for everyone. The sky was a very dangerous 10 00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:39.759 place in the early days of commercial aviation. By flying 11 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:43.280 into storms to learn how they worked, these experts made 12 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:47.759 air travel and weather forecasting much more predictable. By hal 13 00:00:48.039 --> 00:00:53.600 sunt the twenty two passengers who boarded Pennsylvania Central Airlines 14 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:57.159 Flight nineteen out of Washington, d C. On August three one, 15 00:00:57.359 --> 00:01:00.759 nineteen forty would have had little reason to worry about 16 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:04.760 arriving safely at their final destination. It had been seventeen 17 00:01:04.799 --> 00:01:08.200 months since the last fatal commercial airline accident in the 18 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:12.159 United States, a record at the time. The flight's captain, 19 00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:16.519 Lowell V. Skrogens had eleven thousand hours of flying experience, 20 00:01:16.799 --> 00:01:20.719 more than seven times what the Federal Aviation Administration now 21 00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:25.680 requires for airline pilot certification and the aircraft a rugged 22 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:30.319 DC III. The era's quintessential airliner, had flown in that 23 00:01:30.439 --> 00:01:34.040 morning from Detroit without incident. The day before, it had 24 00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:38.439 undergone a routine inspection of its propellers, wings, radios, and 25 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:42.879 all other critical equipment. Even its interior had received a 26 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:46.439 good scrub and polish. Just before two thirty p m. 27 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:50.359 Flight nineteen fired up its twin eleven hundred horse power 28 00:01:50.439 --> 00:01:55.799 engines and began its ascent. About fifty five miles northwest 29 00:01:55.840 --> 00:02:00.239 in Lovettsville, Virginia, Dorothy Everhardt was tinkering in her home 30 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:04.280 when suddenly, according to an incident report later compiled by 31 00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:08.199 the newly established Civil Aeronautics Board, she heard what she 32 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:11.879 thought was lightning strike her house. Everhart shut off the 33 00:02:11.879 --> 00:02:15.759 electricity and stepped onto the back porch. To the west, 34 00:02:15.960 --> 00:02:19.479 she could see black clouds assembling over a clump of mountains. 35 00:02:20.159 --> 00:02:24.120 A lone airplane was headed straight into the storm. Everhart 36 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:27.240 lived along a well trafficked flight route, and she was 37 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:31.800 accustomed to airplanes overhead, but this plane was flying lower 38 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:35.400 than most of them go. She recalled. Then a brilliant 39 00:02:35.439 --> 00:02:39.919 flash bleached the sky, momentarily blinding her, but she couldn't 40 00:02:39.919 --> 00:02:46.120 miss an awful roaring. Another Lovettsville resident, Lydia Jacobs, heard 41 00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:49.639 the strike too, followed by a sound resembling a scream 42 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:53.479 or a siren. When Jacobs peeked out her window, she 43 00:02:53.599 --> 00:02:57.439 saw a streak of fire shooting across the clouds. Flight 44 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:01.159 nineteen appeared to Jacob's as quote a burnt up building 45 00:03:01.479 --> 00:03:06.520 floating through the air. Within moments, Flight nineteen plunged to 46 00:03:06.599 --> 00:03:10.719 the ground and slammed into a nearby alfalfa field, where 47 00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:15.039 it was demolished on impact, killing everyone on board. At 48 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:18.800 the time, Flight nineteen was the deadliest commercial airline accident 49 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:23.240 in American history, but it was not unique. Soon after 50 00:03:23.319 --> 00:03:28.080 Flight nineteen, a string of fatal accidents followed. On November fourth, 51 00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:32.199 nineteen forty, a d C three flying from Oakland, California, 52 00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:35.080 to Salt Lake City, was caught in a snow storm 53 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:38.439 and struck a mountain, killing all ten people on board. 54 00:03:39.159 --> 00:03:42.639 A month later, a DC three stalled out while trying 55 00:03:42.680 --> 00:03:46.800 to land in overcast and icy conditions in Chicago, killing 56 00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:50.199 all three crew members and seven of its thirteen passengers. 57 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:54.360 On January twenty third, nineteen forty one, a d C 58 00:03:54.599 --> 00:03:58.080 three crashed after an aborted landing during bad weather in 59 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:01.560 Saint Louis, where one passageer and one crew member died. 60 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:06.159 The next month, five passengers and three crew members aboard 61 00:04:06.199 --> 00:04:10.439 a DC three en route to Georgia were killed while 62 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:15.599 landing in rain and fog. Mechanical errors, delays, detours, and 63 00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:19.360 cancelations were common in those days, but no threat was 64 00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:23.480 greater to commercial air travel than the weather. Scientists knew 65 00:04:23.519 --> 00:04:26.839 that clouds could be turbulent environments, but there was little 66 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:29.839 guidance for pilots about how to navigate through them, and 67 00:04:29.959 --> 00:04:35.240 meteorological forecasting was still a primitive science. Pilots would take 68 00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:39.240 off expecting smooth rides, only to stumble into dark clouds. 69 00:04:39.839 --> 00:04:43.759 At best, the consequences might be a misadventure through stormy 70 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:48.519 skies that left passengers nauseated. In the nineteen thirties, airliners 71 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:52.839 were routinely hosed down between flights. At worst, the results 72 00:04:52.839 --> 00:04:57.519 were catastrophic. Flight nineteen happened to be carrying Senator Ernest 73 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:01.439 Lundine of Minnesota, and its and the many accidents that 74 00:05:01.560 --> 00:05:06.360 followed spurred American government officials In due action. In March 75 00:05:06.439 --> 00:05:11.319 nineteen forty one, Oklahoma Representative Jack Nichols assumed the chair 76 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:15.680 of the House Select Committee to investigate air accidents. The 77 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:19.639 committee investigated for the next two years, compiling a series 78 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:24.079 of reports that together amounted to fifteen cubic feet of paperwork. 79 00:05:24.839 --> 00:05:31.439 Throughout the evidence highlighted a pervasive and exceedingly familiar natural force, thunderstorms. 80 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:35.560 In fact, thunderstorms were later found to be responsible for 81 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:39.879 fifty six airplane accidents between nineteen thirty eight and nineteen 82 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:44.240 forty five, a staggering number considering that commercial air travel 83 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:48.839 was radically curtailed in nineteen forty two to concentrate resources 84 00:05:48.839 --> 00:05:53.079 on the war effort. Thunderstorms were as enigmatic as they 85 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:57.920 were destructive, seeming to manifest suddenly flooding towns and spawning 86 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:02.839 tornadoes that ripped through America heartland. They churned violently at 87 00:06:02.879 --> 00:06:06.680 the Earth's surface and whipped rain and hail. Even the 88 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:10.800 brightest meteorological minds barely understood them, and to begin to 89 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:15.360 decipher their inner workings would require abundant and diverse data 90 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:20.839 that simply eluded the capabilities of ground bound meteorologists. Precise 91 00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:26.079 readings of temperature, humidity, wind speed, precipitation, degrees of turbulence, 92 00:06:26.120 --> 00:06:29.319 and the rate at which these factors varied across space 93 00:06:29.399 --> 00:06:32.399 and time. And the best way to collect that data 94 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:35.199 was to seek out the worst storms and, in the 95 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:40.079 name of science, fly airplanes straight into them. The herculean 96 00:06:40.199 --> 00:06:43.360 government initiative that followed would prove to be one of 97 00:06:43.360 --> 00:06:47.800 the most influential scientific efforts of the twentieth century. Given 98 00:06:47.879 --> 00:06:52.199 an appropriately swashbuckling name, the Thunderstorm Project drew on the 99 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:56.120 expertise of America's top weather scientists and the knowhow of 100 00:06:56.160 --> 00:06:59.160 the U. S. Army Air Forces, the U. S. Navy, 101 00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:02.720 the US Way Bureau, which became the National Weather Service, 102 00:07:03.199 --> 00:07:07.720 and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the precursor to NASA, 103 00:07:08.199 --> 00:07:12.120 and it helped transform the rudimentary practice of airborne weather 104 00:07:12.199 --> 00:07:17.120 forecasting into a precise science of the sky. Commercial air 105 00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:20.959 travel was made demonstrably safer, and an untold number of 106 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:24.600 lives were saved. The global economy as we know it 107 00:07:24.879 --> 00:07:29.160 grew from the reliability bequeathed to US. Mike Kertz, a 108 00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:33.040 forecaster for the National Weather Service, has described its findings 109 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:37.199 as quote the quarterstone of today's understanding of thunder storms 110 00:07:37.399 --> 00:07:42.279 and related weather phenomena. Quote Remarkably, the project has also 111 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:46.160 largely been lost to history. Quote it's not taught in 112 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:50.240 college when you're going through meteorology. Kurtz told me recently. 113 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:53.680 I've gone back and looked in some textbooks, and it's 114 00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:58.560 literally in some a footnote may be a brief paragraph. 115 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:02.199 What does remain in a hoste historical record, cobbled together 116 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:07.680 from incident reports, oral histories, congressional hearings, scientific publications, and 117 00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:12.519 interviews with contemporary storm chasers illustrates a dynamic portrait of 118 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:16.639 American ingenuity. It's a story about the vast potential of 119 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:21.959 government action and cooperation across civilian and military agencies. And 120 00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:25.360 it's a story about people for whom ignorance and hope 121 00:08:25.399 --> 00:08:28.160 and superstition were not an option when it came to 122 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:33.159 tackling a problem that North Carolina Representative Alfred Lee Bullwinkle, 123 00:08:33.519 --> 00:08:37.720 among the initiative's strongest supporters on Capitol Hill, described as 124 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:42.679 a quote three dimensional one of baffling complexity end quote. 125 00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:47.639 When in nineteen forty five, Francis Rachelderfer, chief of the U. 126 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:50.879 S Weather Bureau, and as a former competitive hot air 127 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:54.919 balloonist no stranger to storms, was tasked with finding the 128 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:58.200 right leader for the Thunderstorm project. He knew just the 129 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:03.080 man for the job. Thunderstorm's first captivated Horace Buyers in 130 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:06.240 late summer nineteen twenty nine, when he was riding a 131 00:09:06.279 --> 00:09:10.120 train from Berkeley, California, where he had just graduated college, 132 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:14.639 to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he would begin graduate studies at MIT. 133 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:19.519 A magnificent storm roared continuously over the Great Plains, and 134 00:09:19.639 --> 00:09:24.080 Buyers watched through black framed classes, mystified by the unending 135 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:29.240 crackle of lightning. At MIT, Buyers studied under the Swedish 136 00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:34.279 meteorologist Karl Gustaf Arvid Rosby, a disciple of the Bergen School, 137 00:09:34.679 --> 00:09:38.279 named for the Norwegian city where its founders developed their theories. 138 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:43.039 Bergen School scientists had discovered that storm systems were composed 139 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:47.080 of fronts masses of cold and warm air, with predictable 140 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:51.399 life cycles. Under Rossby, Buyers became one of the nation's 141 00:09:51.440 --> 00:09:55.159 top forecasters, and by nineteen forty he was established at 142 00:09:55.159 --> 00:09:59.639 the University of Chicago. During World War Two, Chicago became 143 00:09:59.679 --> 00:10:03.639 a hub ub for training military weather officers and Buyers 144 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:09.240 impressed Richelderffer by helping develop weather training and research initiatives, 145 00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:15.039 including forecasting for wartime planning. Reichelderfer named Buyers the Thunderstorm 146 00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:19.399 Project's director by August second, nineteen forty five, before the 147 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:23.200 war was even formally over. Buyer's first task was to 148 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:26.679 recruit the best minds to answer a seemingly straightforward question, 149 00:10:27.159 --> 00:10:31.559 how did thunderstorms behave. At the time, scientists estimated a 150 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:36.559 thunderstorm's size in part by observing its basic visual dimensions, 151 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:39.919 that is, by its height, width, and depth, but these 152 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:43.039 measurements did little to indicate how bumpy a flight through 153 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:46.600 a given storm would be. Buyers set out to discern 154 00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:51.639 the storm's fourth dimension intensity. To understand that, Buyers and 155 00:10:51.679 --> 00:10:56.120 his researchers needed to decipher a storm's internal structure, so 156 00:10:56.200 --> 00:10:59.759 they began recruiting former World War II pilots to seek 157 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:02.799 out the most dangerous parts of the sky. They would 158 00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:06.200 do so in p sixty one black Widow airplanes, which 159 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:09.759 had been designed to fly harrowing night missions hunting down 160 00:11:09.879 --> 00:11:14.559 enemy bombers. Now the pilots would hunt storms, penetrate them, and, 161 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:18.360 if they survived, take careful notes of what they experienced. 162 00:11:19.200 --> 00:11:22.080 No storm was to be avoided because it appeared too 163 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:26.600 large or too violent. Roscoe Brahm, one of the project's leads, 164 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:31.879 later recalled all told the Thunderstorm Project recruited eleven pilots 165 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:36.879 and seven navigators for this uniquely precarious mission. Buyers and 166 00:11:36.919 --> 00:11:40.039 his colleagues narrowed down what they believed were the main 167 00:11:40.120 --> 00:11:45.159 characteristics quote reflecting the character and intensity of the thunderstorm process. 168 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:51.240 Storms they wrote contained updrafts and downdrafts quote the lifeblood 169 00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:54.360 of the thunderstorm, although little was known of the downdraft 170 00:11:54.440 --> 00:11:59.159 end quote. Horizontal winds and temperature gradients, electric fields and 171 00:11:59.279 --> 00:12:03.519 variations in rainfall and intensity, changes in air pressure and 172 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:08.080 fluctuations in wid speed at ground level, and lastly, overall 173 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:12.919 levels of turbulence and gustiness. To measure these phenomena, the 174 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:16.440 black widows were affixed with a suite of instruments from 175 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:22.080 photographic recorders and sensitive temperature gauges to quote airborne electric 176 00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:26.159 fields meters end quote. But by large the most important 177 00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:30.440 instrument was a newish technology called radio detection and ranging, 178 00:12:30.879 --> 00:12:35.480 better known as radar. Radar emits radio waves that bounce 179 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:39.720 off objects and reverberate back to the source, allowing scientists 180 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:43.360 to calculate the distance and relative position of those objects 181 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:47.919 using a returning signals, travel time, and other measurable properties. 182 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:51.759 The technology had been developed in secret before World War 183 00:12:51.799 --> 00:12:55.840 II and had been critical in wartime planning. The British 184 00:12:55.879 --> 00:12:58.960 relied on radar during the Battle of Britain to detect 185 00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:03.480 incoming German and in nineteen forty one they discovered that 186 00:13:03.519 --> 00:13:07.080 they could use radar to track rain, snow, and water vapor. 187 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:12.200 The next year, scientists at MIT wrote to Reichelderfer that 188 00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:15.840 they had used radar to identify thunderstorms from as far 189 00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:19.480 as one hundred and sixty miles away. By early nineteen 190 00:13:19.559 --> 00:13:23.840 forty four, many Army Air Forces fighters and bombers were 191 00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:29.960 equipped with nascent radar systems. Buyers was already well aware 192 00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:34.240 of radar's forecasting potential. He had helped direct a training 193 00:13:34.279 --> 00:13:38.279 program for wartime weather radar officers and had even mentioned 194 00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:43.360 the promising technology in his forthcoming meteorology textbook before he 195 00:13:43.480 --> 00:13:46.879 was ordered to remove it because of national security concerns. 196 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:52.120 For the thunderstorm project, he believed radar would prove immediately valuable, 197 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:55.279 not only for detecting storms, but as a means of 198 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:59.159 triangulating the vast web of data the pilots and scientists 199 00:13:59.159 --> 00:14:03.039 would collect. Quote. The problem of tying all of these 200 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:06.559 data together to obtain a unified picture of each thunder 201 00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:11.320 storm required exact radar tracking or radio direction finding in 202 00:14:11.399 --> 00:14:15.399 connection with planes and instruments end quote. Buyers wrote later. 203 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:19.600 For that reason, in addition to ground based radar networks 204 00:14:19.639 --> 00:14:24.200 dispersed throughout the experiment sites, radar beacons were also housed 205 00:14:24.440 --> 00:14:26.840 in the noses of the black widows, so that the 206 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:30.159 planes could be quote located in time and space with 207 00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:34.480 respect to the thunder storm end quote. Finally, to measure 208 00:14:34.519 --> 00:14:37.559 the lower levels of storm systems, where the planes couldn't fly, 209 00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:42.320 Buyers scientists would use a range of unusual instruments deployed 210 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:47.120 from the ground. One was a mechanical hygrometer. Early versions 211 00:14:47.200 --> 00:14:51.600 resembled a violin, which measured the air's relative humidity using 212 00:14:51.639 --> 00:14:55.639 a strand of human hair, specifically blonde hair, which was 213 00:14:55.759 --> 00:15:00.279 especially reactive to humidity, expanding when an encountered moisture and 214 00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:04.320 contracting when the air was dry. Another was the ki tun, 215 00:15:04.919 --> 00:15:09.080 a balloon affixed with small kitelike panels, allowing it to 216 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:14.240 stay aloft and gusty skies while measuring conditions. By early 217 00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:18.039 summer nineteen forty six, Buyers and his team had selected 218 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:22.039 two sites for experiments. The Black Widows would first take 219 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:25.720 flight later that summer over central Florida, a region known 220 00:15:25.759 --> 00:15:30.480 for its unusually frequent thunder storms. The following summer, operations 221 00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:34.279 would move to the southwestern Ohio town of Wilmington, which 222 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.559 also reported frequent thunder storms and was close to two 223 00:15:37.639 --> 00:15:41.240 military air fields. In nineteen forty eight, they merged to 224 00:15:41.279 --> 00:15:45.639 become right Patterson Air Force Base. The only thing left 225 00:15:45.639 --> 00:15:49.120 to do was to await the forthcoming storm season and 226 00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:52.600 then fly into the belly of the beast. During the 227 00:15:52.639 --> 00:15:56.360 next two summers, black Widow crews an Army Air Force's 228 00:15:56.399 --> 00:15:59.679 pilot and a navigator, plus by nineteen forty seven a 229 00:15:59.720 --> 00:16:03.480 third crew member for helping with observations, made hundreds of 230 00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:07.879 rocky passes through storms, bouncing and shuddering through turbulence that 231 00:16:08.039 --> 00:16:11.519 routinely sent them rocketing or plummeting more than five hundred 232 00:16:11.559 --> 00:16:15.480 feet in an instant. The pilots and navigators strained not 233 00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:18.759 only to keep the planes level and their instruments functioning, 234 00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:23.120 but also to frantically note their observations, scribbling them in 235 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:27.440 notebooks or speaking into tape recorders. Because Buyers and his 236 00:16:27.519 --> 00:16:32.000 scientists required data from multiple points within a storm, each 237 00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:35.600 mission involved five black Widows flying in a vertical stack 238 00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:40.480 formation at five thousand foot intervals. The flights could be harrowing. 239 00:16:41.240 --> 00:16:45.320 One August afternoon in forty seven, twenty thousand feet over 240 00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:51.279 southern Ohio, First Lieutenant Tom Mayon felt his eyeballs jitter 241 00:16:51.399 --> 00:16:54.960 in his skull as his retrofitted fighter plane was tossed 242 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:59.200 around by an especially wily storm. He could just make 243 00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:02.320 out the time two thirty seven p m. When a 244 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.599 gust blasted his airplane with an uppercut of such violent 245 00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:10.200 precision that it flipped the plane nose over tail. Standing 246 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:14.240 vertically in the air, Mayon's Black Widow stalled out, and 247 00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:18.880 he nearly tumbled back to earth. First Lieutenant Joe T. Hargut, 248 00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:22.640 flying five thousand feet below him, smashed into the same 249 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:27.200 turbulent wave, but rather than causing Hargot's plane to stall out, 250 00:17:27.559 --> 00:17:31.240 the gust transformed it into a rocket ship, exerting blood 251 00:17:31.279 --> 00:17:34.480 curdling g forces on the crew as they shot five 252 00:17:34.519 --> 00:17:37.799 thousand feet upward into the storm. In less than a minute, 253 00:17:38.440 --> 00:17:41.640 First Lieutenant Robert L. Smith, flying a third plane at 254 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:45.200 ten thousand feet, collided with that same force and was 255 00:17:45.319 --> 00:17:50.519 bounced upward two thousand feet miraculously after a second engine stall, 256 00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:54.599 Mayon wrestled control of his airplane and guided his crew 257 00:17:54.680 --> 00:17:58.079 to a safe landing. The other four P sixty one's 258 00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:02.079 gritted their way through the mission, managing to continue recording 259 00:18:02.119 --> 00:18:06.799 observations through every phase of the storm. Incredibly, no one 260 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:11.519 was killed during the project's two summer span. With each 261 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:15.839 successive flight, a clearer picture of thunder storms emerged. The 262 00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:19.720 storms were not chaotic or random. They followed a particular, 263 00:18:19.799 --> 00:18:25.839 albeit violent life cycle. Roscoe Braham, a cloud physicist studying 264 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:28.960 under buyers in Chicago and a former World War II 265 00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:33.920 bomber pilot himself, was critical in deciphering this cycle. With 266 00:18:34.039 --> 00:18:36.720 the aid of radar, which allowed him to co ordinate 267 00:18:36.839 --> 00:18:40.759 data collected by the planes and the ground operators, Braham 268 00:18:40.920 --> 00:18:46.240 identified three distinct stages of a thunderstorm's life. The cumulus stage, 269 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:50.119 when its winds began to swell upward, the mature stage, 270 00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:53.000 when the storm was at its most fearsome, and a 271 00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:56.799 final stage after about thirty minutes, when the storm weakened 272 00:18:56.839 --> 00:19:01.160 and eventually died out. Learned to identify a storm stage, 273 00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:04.839 the scientists realized, and they could predict how it would behave. 274 00:19:05.720 --> 00:19:09.279 This led to a signature finding the ground beneath a 275 00:19:09.319 --> 00:19:14.319 thunderstorm experienced the most violent gales just after heavy rain 276 00:19:14.400 --> 00:19:17.759 began to fall, which caused winds to bounce off the 277 00:19:17.759 --> 00:19:22.359 Earth's surface and then spin and accelerate. The closer one 278 00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:25.640 was to the storm's core, the more devastating the winds. 279 00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:30.079 Because takeoffs and landings were and still are the most 280 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:33.759 dangerous parts of flying, if airlines could be alerted that 281 00:19:33.799 --> 00:19:37.240 a thunderstorm was brewing near an airfield, they could delay 282 00:19:37.279 --> 00:19:42.319 their flights Accordingly, Buyers and Braham concluded that delaying a 283 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:45.960 takeoff by even five minutes could reduce the likelihood of 284 00:19:46.079 --> 00:19:50.880 encountering strong turbulence, which would in turn dramatically reduce the 285 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:55.960 chances of an accident. The project's analysts also discovered that 286 00:19:56.079 --> 00:19:59.799 pilots could adjust the sensors on their radars to pinpoint 287 00:19:59.799 --> 00:20:02.960 them the heaviest rainfall in a storm where turbulence was 288 00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:08.000 most likely. Because radar beams bounce off water droplets, pilots 289 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:12.200 and researchers could locate not only the presence of oncoming storms, 290 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:16.200 but also specifically where within the storm rain, hail, and 291 00:20:16.319 --> 00:20:20.599 ice were most prevalent. They observed that radar would send 292 00:20:20.599 --> 00:20:24.920 back an echo indicating the most highly concentrated areas of 293 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.720 water within the storm. The pilots then corroborated these radar 294 00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:34.119 findings with their own observations of turbulence, and concluded that 295 00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:39.160 turbulence was often worst where rainfall was heaviest. The turbulence 296 00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:42.000 in a storm is caused not by rain, but by 297 00:20:42.039 --> 00:20:46.920 what causes rain, strong updrafts of wind. This moisture laden 298 00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:50.200 air then cools to form rain, which is forced back 299 00:20:50.279 --> 00:20:54.200 down to the ground in powerful down drafts. Much to 300 00:20:54.240 --> 00:20:57.960 their surprise, the scientists also learned that a thunder storm, 301 00:20:58.039 --> 00:21:01.680 which could cover anywhere from twenty to two hundred square miles, 302 00:21:02.119 --> 00:21:06.119 was not always one storm. It could comprise multiple cells, 303 00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:09.400 each of which might brew its own mini storm system. 304 00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:13.319 If a two hundred square mile storm sounded daunting to 305 00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:18.799 air travelers, what the scientists discovered next inspired hope. Although 306 00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:22.839 the cores of thunderstorms could be exceptionally rough the areas 307 00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:26.880 between these cells were relatively calm. This finding would allow 308 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:31.160 pilots and ground operators to identify turbulent hot spots inside 309 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:36.119 a storm and navigate around them with minimal disruption. What's more, 310 00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:40.160 it would transform night flying, as radar could reach storms 311 00:21:40.200 --> 00:21:44.279 in complete darkness. Buyers, Bram, and the rest of the 312 00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:49.200 team spent two years piecing together their findings. Probably their 313 00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:54.279 most significant finding pertained to radar. Quote. Radar is without question, 314 00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:58.359 one of the best instrument aids to thunderstorm flying currently 315 00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:01.359 available end quote, they wrote in their book length report 316 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:06.119 released in June nineteen forty nine. With sophisticated radar and 317 00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:09.880 trained radar operators, they wrote, the sky could be traversed 318 00:22:09.960 --> 00:22:13.720 not only safely, but with a reasonable degree of predictability. 319 00:22:14.599 --> 00:22:17.799 The final report did not point to major revelations from 320 00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:22.640 the ground released instruments. Thunderstorms proved too powerful even for caytunes, 321 00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:27.400 as Buyers noted that overwhelming winds at lower elevations rendered 322 00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:32.599 any measurements quote difficult and impossible to evaluate endo. Still, 323 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:37.759 one can appreciate the abuliant creative effort and experimental resourcefulness 324 00:22:38.119 --> 00:22:41.480 of Buyer's team and using everything at their disposal to 325 00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:46.359 try to wrangle the storm. Despite the project's accomplishments, its 326 00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:50.839 recommendations were not immediately implemented by a commercial airline industry 327 00:22:50.839 --> 00:22:55.599 that was rapidly expanding after the lifting of wartime travel restrictions. 328 00:22:56.200 --> 00:22:58.720 It would take a number of near misses and one 329 00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:03.160 tragedy to mark a turning point. One such near miss 330 00:23:03.440 --> 00:23:06.640 was a September nineteen fifty four air traffic jam so 331 00:23:06.920 --> 00:23:11.400 terrible that it was dubbed Black Wednesday. Three hundred airliners 332 00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:15.359 were stuck circling in bad weather above New York, delaying 333 00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:20.240 some forty five thousand passengers. Then, in June nineteen fifty six, 334 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:24.519 two airliners crashed into each other twenty one thousand feet 335 00:23:24.599 --> 00:23:27.960 over the Grand Canyon, killing one hundred and twenty eight people. 336 00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:34.039 Investigators determined that seemingly innocuous fluffy clouds likely played a 337 00:23:34.119 --> 00:23:37.799 role in the pilot's inability to see each other. The 338 00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:41.960 incident prompted the creation of the Federal Aviation Agency now 339 00:23:42.039 --> 00:23:47.000 the Federal Aviation Administration, and long range radar, instrumentation and 340 00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:51.440 surveillance equipment to monitor air traffic were soon standardized in 341 00:23:51.519 --> 00:23:57.119 airports across the nation. After the thunderstorm project, Buyers returned 342 00:23:57.119 --> 00:24:00.720 to the University of Chicago, where he remained till nineteen 343 00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:05.519 sixty five. The meteorologist R. H. Simpson, after whom the 344 00:24:05.559 --> 00:24:10.839 category based Saphir Simpson Hurricane Windscale is partially named, described 345 00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:14.359 Byers as quote the balance wheel in the administration of 346 00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:17.920 one of the greatest meteorology programs the world has ever 347 00:24:18.039 --> 00:24:23.240 known end quote. Among the scientists Buyer's mentored was Tetsuya 348 00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:27.920 ted Fujita, whom Byers recruited from Japan and who came 349 00:24:27.960 --> 00:24:31.680 to be known as Mister Tornado for his groundbreaking research 350 00:24:31.720 --> 00:24:35.720 on tornadoes. The e F scale for measuring tornado strength 351 00:24:35.799 --> 00:24:40.759 is named after him. Enhanced Fujita. Buyers, who finished his 352 00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:44.799 career overseeing the College of Geosciences at Texas A and M, 353 00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:49.759 retired in nineteen seventy four, but his final meteorological contribution 354 00:24:50.200 --> 00:24:53.240 came three years later, when he co authored a paper 355 00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:57.200 with Fujiita analyzing an airplane crash at New York's Kennedy 356 00:24:57.240 --> 00:25:02.000 Airport in June nineteen seventy five. The plane experienced quote 357 00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:06.039 unusually sharp wind changes under a thunder shower end quote. 358 00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:09.680 They wrote the result of a downburst, a phenomenon that 359 00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:13.920 Buyers and his scientists had never observed during the Thunderstorm Project. 360 00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:18.160 In the wrong conditions, Fujiita and Buyers found the ultra 361 00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:21.920 violet downward gust could cause an airplane to undergo an 362 00:25:22.039 --> 00:25:27.480 unexpected sinking, an especially dangerous problem when already flying slow 363 00:25:27.519 --> 00:25:31.599 and low to the ground. Such downbursts, they discovered, could 364 00:25:31.640 --> 00:25:35.400 be detected and thus avoided on radar in the form 365 00:25:35.480 --> 00:25:39.799 of rare spearhead echoes. The finding was its own kind 366 00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:43.039 of echo to Bayer's initial work on the Thunderstorm Project, 367 00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:46.880 when he and Braham improved decision making for take offs 368 00:25:46.920 --> 00:25:51.640 and landings. Because the method sometimes calls for delays, even 369 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:54.880 short ones, when a storm is brewing to day, we 370 00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:58.920 may take such precautions for granted or worse, stuck on 371 00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:02.119 a p ttarmac awaited the all clear, perhaps pulling out 372 00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:04.799 our phones to track a storm threat in real time 373 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:08.880 on our pocket radar devices. We rarely appreciate why such 374 00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:12.440 safeguards were imposed to begin with. Yet on the whole 375 00:26:12.799 --> 00:26:15.640 the sky can now be traversed with an exceptional level 376 00:26:15.720 --> 00:26:20.720 of safety. Hulking airliners fairy millions of Americans every day 377 00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:26.039 crossing continents and oceans with such routine consistency that commercial 378 00:26:26.039 --> 00:26:30.319 air travel's harrowing infancy has largely been replaced by its mundanity, 379 00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:34.599 the monotony of its food, the inadequate inflight entertainment, the 380 00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:38.319 endless waiting today. To be aloft in the sky is 381 00:26:38.359 --> 00:26:43.359 not merely expected, it's boring. Few people have much awareness 382 00:26:43.359 --> 00:26:46.000 about whom they have to thank for that. But you 383 00:26:46.039 --> 00:26:49.400 can find small testaments to Horace Buyers and his team 384 00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:52.440 if you know where to look. One is a historical 385 00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:55.680 marker in Saint Cloud, Florida, the site of the project's 386 00:26:55.720 --> 00:27:00.559 first phase of test flights. Another is in rural southwestern Ohio, 387 00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:03.799 the sight of the second last spring. I drove out 388 00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:07.000 to Wilmington, Ohio, where I found a marker tucked away 389 00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:09.519 on a back road across the street from a local 390 00:27:09.559 --> 00:27:12.640 air park, which serves as a home base for cargo 391 00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:17.799 carriers like UPS and Amazon Air. Coincidentally, a severe thunderstorm 392 00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:21.200 was forecast for that afternoon. I could see the clouds 393 00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:24.599 twisting and the sky beginning to darken. No sooner had 394 00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:27.079 I made it back to my hotel than I heard 395 00:27:27.160 --> 00:27:29.920 a loud rumble and crack. There was a pause as 396 00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:33.559 if the sky were taking in a deep breath. Then 397 00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:38.240 it exhaled. Winds began whipping, and rain started falling in sheets. 398 00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:41.759 I stepped outside for a moment. I closed my eyes 399 00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:46.079 and listened wooshing wind and pattering rain. But something was missing. 400 00:27:46.519 --> 00:27:50.160 All day, big heavy cargo planes had flown overhead, emitting 401 00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:53.400