Photo By Marnee Losurdo | Lt. Col. Jonathan Talbot, chief aerial weather reconnaissance officer for the 53rd...... read more read more
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KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Seated at his station, he dutifully continues his work collecting and double checking data despite the shaking, sometimes violently, of everything around him. Then suddenly, there’s a calm. The engines are still humming along, but the shaking has stopped. He looks out of the window, down to the surface of the ocean. He is now inside the eye of yet another hurricane.
The experience of penetrating a hurricane’s eyewall is one Lt. Col. Jonathan Talbot, chief aerial weather reconnaissance officer for the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, has had more than 150 times over the past 27 years here as a Hurricane Hunter in the squadron. This July, he will be retiring from the Air Force with over 5,600 flying hours and 34 years of service.
Over the years, Talbot said he has seen many changes. From flying on WC-130E models and having to hand write information gathered visually before sending it via radio to the National Hurricane Center, to working on the WC-130J with all new automated systems that gather far more and better quality information and send it every 10 minutes, he has been through many updates and even helped facilitate some of those upgrades.
One of Talbot’s proudest moments was getting all 10 of the 53rd WRS WC-130J aircraft outfitted with the Step Frequency Microwave Radiometer, he said. Before the SFMR, called the “smurf,” aircrew would have to look down at the surface of the ocean and try to determine what the surface wind speeds were, said Talbot. If they weren’t able to see the surface they’d estimate based upon the flight level winds.
“Surface winds are one of the most important pieces of information to know, because those are the winds that cause the storm surge and other damage on shore,” said Talbot.
With all new automated systems comes the challenges of keeping people trained and up-to-date with the latest software on the plane. “We get upgrades every year,” said Talbot, “and, we have to figure out what bugs may be in the programs and how to work around them.” Talbot said those bugs are then reported back up to the programmers to fix for future upgrades.
Talbot has a long history of flying. His first assignment in the Air Force was at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, as a weather officer.
“I got to fly in the Command Post planes that would go with fighters and tankers crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” said Talbot.
There, he would keep the mission commanders posted on the divert bases for the fighters and forecast the tracks, he said. His second assignment brought him to Keesler AFB and the Hurricane Hunters. All of those years of flying has given him a good knowledge of flight.
He understands aviation, which gives him good “air sense” making it really easy to work with him, said Lt. Col. Troy Anderson, 53rd WRS pilot. Anderson was with the 53rd WRS when Talbot was first assigned there in 1985 and has been there ever since. His knowledge of his job makes him very reliable and allows him to make the mission run smoothly, said Anderson.
“I really fell in love with doing this when I was here on active duty,” said Talbot. After about four years away on other assignments overseas, he was asked to come back in 1992 since the Air Force Reserve was taking over the mission and was looking for people with experience doing this mission. He said he voluntarily left active duty and returned because it’s a lot of fun, but more importantly helps the public, and is a humanitarian mission.
Over the course of his career, Talbot has become a leader in the field and was honored in February at the annual National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Florida, with the Distinguished Service Award. The award acknowledges his contributions not only in the air, but on the ground as well. He has been a major contributor at scientific forums and conferences, as well as his recruiting and training of the majority of the current weather officers in the squadron. Talbot also has coordinated and participated in the Caribbean Hurricane Awareness Tour and East Coast Hurricane Awareness Tour to inform families in hurricane prone areas how to prepare for these storms on an annual basis.
When he isn’t flying into hurricanes, Talbot enjoys practicing astrophotography. The night sky is absolutely beautiful, the problem is we typically can’t see much with our eyes so we don’t appreciate what we are missing, he said. Once he’s fully retired, he plans to travel and teach other aspiring photographers how to capture the night sky.
“It’s currently a hobby, but I’m going to try to get more involved with showing people how to do that type of stuff,” said Talbot.
While he may have his plans for retirement ready in the back of his mind, he still has a few weeks left as his last day in the unit is July 31. And with what looks like a possibly busy hurricane season just beginning, he will surely try to get a few more trips into the eye of a hurricane.
| Date Taken: | 07.07.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 11.21.2016 15:12 |
| Story ID: | 215427 |
| Location: | KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, MISSISSIPPI, US |
| Web Views: | 52 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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