http://www.hurricanehunters.com/plane.htmlI believe they're excellent aircraft and safe to operate, but these technical problems just seem to be scrubbing missions
so much more recently than has ever happened before.
Imagine if the recon flight that recorded Charley's surprising rapid intensification just before landfall in 2004 had been grounded due to technical issues. Charley would have come ashore as an operationally assessed high-end Cat2 or low-end Cat 3 and folks would have been very upset when they found out the recon plane was grounded... that would have gotten the appropriations rolling for newer aircraft. These C130s we're using right now are like half a century old.
But then again, and I'm not trying to get political in any way beyond the immediate scope of recon funding.... if Belize and Mexico aren't contributing funding to the NHC or the Hurricane Hunter program, I don't think they really ought to expect the same type of round-the-clock reconnaissance from the us that we have for US threats. It would be nice to have had an airplane in there last night to capture the rapid intensification, and the interesting eye clearing over land, to gather valuable research about intensification and land decay for the next storm.... I understand we can't just spend a ton of money on a
research mission to learn more about future hurricanes, but we did just land a two billion dollar spacecraft on Mars to continue an ongoing research mission.
I'm just

about losing out on the recon data last night. It would have been a very good time to have an airplane in that storm.