By Air Force Maj. Marne A.C. Losurdo, 403rd Wing
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss., April 3, 2018 — Two Air Force
officers realized their dreams about becoming a Hurricane Hunter and flying
into the most powerful storms on Earth.
Air Force Maj. Ashley Lundry, an aerial reconnaissance
weather officer, and Air Force Maj. Devon Meister, a pilot, are both members of
the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, referred to as the Hurricane Hunters,
a unit in the 403rd Wing here.
The 53rd WRS is the only Defense Department unit that flies
reconnaissance missions into severe tropical weather during the hurricane
season, June 1 through Nov. 30, to gather data for the National Hurricane
Center to improve their forecasts and storm warnings.
Father’s Support
“It was my dream to fly though hurricanes since I was a
little girl,” Lundry said. Her father, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and Navy
pilot, influenced her career choice, she said. “I always thought weather was
really cool, and my dad told me there were pilots who flew planes through
hurricanes,” she added. “He planted the idea that I could do it.”
And she did, though she first served in the Army and the Air
National Guard. Lundry received an Army ROTC scholarship to attend the Florida
Institute of Technology, earning a degree in meteorology and her commission in
2006. She got her master’s degree in physical science at Emporia State
University in Kansas in 2013.
After serving four years as an Army logistics officer, she
transferred to the Oklahoma Air National Guard in 2010 to serve as a weather
officer. She attended the Weather Officer Course here in 2010 and toured the
53rd WRS, which provided her an opportunity to inquire about future
opportunities to serve in the squadron, she said. She transferred to the 53rd
in 2014 and began her training to become a qualified ARWO.
For Meister, the path to become a Hurricane Hunter wasn’t a
lifelong goal as it was for Lundry, but she knew she wanted a degree in mathematics,
and the Air Force provided her the opportunity to do so, she said.
“I really liked math,” said Meister, who earned her degree
from the University of South Florida in 2003. “And a good thing about a
mathematics degree is that it opens a lot of doors for you in the military. At
the time I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do in the Air Force, but they needed
weather officers. They sent me to get a second bachelor’s degree in meteorology
at the U.S. Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California, and I became a
weather officer.”
Meister also attended the Weather Officer Course here in
2004 and visited the Hurricane Hunters to learn about their mission.
“Ever since I went on that tour, I wanted to be a part of
the Hurricane Hunters,” Meister said.
However, Meister got the opportunity to become a pilot and
took it. While in pilot training, she found out her unit was losing its mission
and she had to find a job, so she called the 53rd WRS and was told that the
squadron had a pilot board scheduled the following month. She met that board
and signed on as a Hurricane Hunter in November 2011.
Among the Few
Today, Meister is one of two female pilots in the squadron,
one of 243 female pilots in the Air Force Reserve, and one of 728 in the entire
Air Force. Lundry is one of four female ARWOs in the squadron, Air Force
Reserve and Air Force; the 53rd WRS is the only unit that has this job.
It’s a unique mission, and with that mission comes unique
challenges. As a pilot, Meister and her counterparts fly into storms most
pilots avoid.
“The biggest difference between being a pilot for the
Hurricane Hunters versus another unit is we purposely fly into severe weather
rather than avoid it; and there is no training for that,” Meister said.
In fact, the majority of the squadron's training for pilots,
navigators, ARWOs and loadmasters is all conducted at home station and during
operational missions, she said, as there is no formal schoolhouse.
“We are a student for multiple missions into a hurricane so
we can experience the environment,” said Meister, who added it took her about
two years of pilot training, C-130J specific qualification and on-the-job
training to become proficient to fly through storms.
Meister, who has now flown into 52 storms and has more than
1,500 flight hours, said her role as a pilot is to fly the weather officer into
the storm.
Because the Air Force has only 20 ARWOs, Lundry said, their
training also takes place in-house.
“We need actual storms to fly for training, so the hurricane
season impacts how soon you can become fully qualified,” Lundry explained,
adding that it took about a year and she flew through 10 storms with 94 storm
flight hours.
Two Types of Missions
The squadron conducts two types of missions: low-level
invests and fix missions. ARWOs direct the mission for both, Lundry said.
“And that’s unique to our mission,” Meister said. “The
weather officer is telling the pilot where to go to get the best data, and then
the navigator and pilots work together to ensure the crew will be safe flying
into those conditions.”
A low-level invest mission is flown at 500 to 1,500 feet to
determine if there is a closed circulation, and if there is a closed
circulation, the crew begins flying fix missions into the system, Lundry said.
Once a system becomes a tropical storm or hurricane, the Hurricane Hunters
begin flying at higher altitudes, ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 feet depending
on the severity of the storm.
Aircrews fly through the eye of a storm four to six times to
locate the low-pressure center and circulation of the storm. During each pass
through the center, they release a dropsonde, which collects weather data on
its descent to the ocean surface, specifically gathering the surface winds and
pressure.
During the invest and storm flights, the aircrews transmit
weather data via satellite communication every 10 minutes to the National
Hurricane Center to assist with their forecasts and storm warnings.
Some people may wonder why a person would want to do this
job, but it was an easy decision, Meister and Lundry said.
“I want to make sure I’m spending my time on Earth wisely; I
want to do something that’s valuable,” Meister said. “The only tool that
forecasters have for tropical cyclone prediction is satellite data; and that’s
not enough because a satellite can't tell you the exact center, wind speeds on
the surface, and the central pressure of a storm. We have to fly into the storm
to gather that data. Providing this data to the NHC and increasing their
forecast accuracy is rewarding and important to me.”
Making a Difference
Meister and Lundry said they believe they’re making a
difference in the lives of others by doing this mission.
As women with mathematics and scientific degrees in
scientific career fields that are typically dominated by men, Meister and
Lundry are setting an example for future generations. In 2015, women filled 47
percent of all U.S. jobs and held 24 percent of the jobs in science, technology,
engineering and mathematic jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce
Office Economics and Statistics Administration Office of the Chief Economist
“STEM Jobs: 2017 Update.”
“As a meteorologist, and in any science career, there are
fewer females, but I think that’s changing,” Lundry said.
“I was surprised to learn that only 7 percent of pilots in
Reserve are women,” Meister said. “But, that’s why I like going and talking at
schools where little girls can see that there is a female doing the job. I like
to go on the Caribbean Hurricane Awareness Tour and U.S. Hurricane Awareness
Tour to show young women there is a girl on this plane, and there is
opportunity out there for them to become an aircrew member. Every day during
the HAT,” she continued, “a child would ask if girls fly on this plane, and we
say, ‘Yes, and you can, too.’”
The pilot’s advice to young women is to push themselves and
just try something challenging as it can be really difficult to take that first
step, she said.
“Get out of your comfort zone and try things you don’t think
you can do, because what you’re capable of will surprise you,” she said. “Focus
on being teachable; do your best to learn the material and then try something
harder. By successfully passing courses in school you are building a track
record for of success for yourself. In high school I never would have thought
I’d be where I am today, but the military made that possible.”
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