Flying into a hurricane is not a job for the fainthearted, but expendable drones can go where pilots fear to fly.
The Hurricane Hunter P-3 Orion aircraft of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stay well above storms. Previously they could only see what was happening at sea level by dropping radiosondes, sensors which parachute down through the hurricane providing a snapshot of conditions as they fall.
Last month in Florida, the NOAA tested a drone called Coyote, which can fly right into the heart of the storm. Originally designed for hunting submarines, the Coyote fits in the same launch tube as a radiosonde.
Once released, it opens up 1.5-metre wings and flies for up to an hour with an electric motor.
Last month’s flight in Florida followed the test of a prototype in 2014. This time the Coyote successfully sent back data from 50 miles away, 10 times further than before, and sent back sea surface temperature readings from a new infrared sensor.
Hurricanes are driven by warmth from the sea, and the temperature determines whether the hurricane will get stronger or weaker.
The rate at which the sea is warming or cooling directly determines how the hurricane will change over time, so Coyote can provide far more useful information than the single view of one point given by a radiosonde.
As Coyote chief scientist Joseph Cione puts it, “Instead of being a snapshot, you have a whole movie.”
