Aircraft from the United States Air Force Reserve’s “Hurricane Hunters” unit were at the Northeast Florida Regional Airport in St. Augustine Thursday. The unit collects data in real time that is used by emergency managers and meteorologists to track storms and warn the public. The “Hurricane Hunters,” who are based at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, fly a 700-ton cargo plane directly into the eye of a hurricane in the name of science. Lieutenant Colonel Keith Gibson is a pilot and the unit’s Director of Operations. He says sometimes it’s like getting sprayed with firehose as wide as a school bus. “[It’s] like a thrill ride, like Tower of Terror or something where the bottom gets dropped out,” he said. “You shoot up with those updrafts and downdrafts. We have hail we have to deal with, lightning … [and] we have airborne tornadoes called mesocyclones.” However, not everybody needs to know all that. There are obvious hazards to this job and while Gibson says that he never
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