HPA grad, Josh Brehm passed away on Thursday, July 28, 2011 due to a plane crash. After graduating from HPA in 2001, Josh went on to become a captain at Southwest Airlines, where he served for ten years. He was an officer in Chapter 1423 of the EAA, in addition to being the web designer and one of their newsletter writers. Based in Winterville, North Carolina, Josh owned his own 1940 Taylorcraft BL-65 and graciously gave rides to kids, friends and family. Josh was passionate about flying and getting children excited about aviation, as he was involved in Young Eagles and Wright Flight. We are proud to have shared a brief moment in time with Josh, and HPA offers our prayerful condolences to the Brehm family.

Auvergne, France in the French Alps by John Hoogerwerf

Old Soviet airport in Romania (Cluj-Napoca) by John Hoogerwerf (center photo)

SWA pilot and photographer Mike Reskovac sported the Hat in Sedona, AZ

As it enters the eye wall of Irene, the plane begins to shake and shudder violently, buffeted by the 100 mph winds from the season’s first hurricane.

In the cockpit, the flight crew, led by Cmdr. Carl Newman, intently focuses on keeping “Kermit” – the pet name for one of the two P-3 Orion turboprop planes flying out of MacDill Air Force Base – airborne amid the fury.

For Newman, flying a computer- and technology-laden plane into the heart of a huge hurricane has become routine after 12 years with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“I’ve made 220 penetrations of eye walls,” says Newman, a smile creasing his face. “Every hurricane is different.”

While commercial pilots are trained to fly away from severe weather, hurricane hunters make a living flying into it.

“It is a lot of fun flying into weather,” Newman says. “I have always been interested in flying and hurricanes. This is the best combination of the two.”

While Newman is a veteran of many such flights, not everyone on board the plane today has so much experience. Lt. Cmdr. Scott Price is a former Navy pilot with more than 1,000 hours flying P-3s – none of it in the middle of a Category 2 hurricane. That’s about to change.

* * * * *

In the crew cabin, it’s just another day at the office.

Scientists, meteorologists and technicians monitor screens, watch radar images and check the constant flow of data emanating from sensors on board and dropped from the aircraft, seemingly unfazed by the bouncing and rolling of the plane and the omnipresent rattling of equipment.

“This will help us get a better idea of the structure of the storm,” says Sylvie Lorsolo, a NOAA radar scientist who is manning the Doppler radar, which is only found on the P-3. “This will help give us a better forecast.”

The information they are gathering will not only help get a better fix on the massive storm, says Lorsolo, but it will also be used in a decade-long study to improve the ability to predict hurricane intensity.

Bill Olney, an electrical technician, has made more than 170 eye wall penetrations. He likens flying the hurricane hunter to riding a roller coaster, though he thinks the former is more exciting.

“It’s kind of like Sheikra, only better,” says electrical technician Bill Olney, referring to the well-known Busch Gardens roller coaster. “With Sheikra, you know what you are going to get. When you fly into a hurricane, you never know what this will do.”

As he speaks, Olney, who lives in Riverview, unwraps a dropsonde, a cardboard cylinder filled with sensors that read water temperature, wind speed, air pressure and humidity. At a preset location, he inserts the device into a white tube, pushes a button and, with a loud whoosh, the device falls out of the aircraft.

The device takes about three minutes to travel the 8,000 feet to the churning waters of the Atlantic, where it shorts out upon impact.

“These things cost $700 each,” says Olney. “We’ll drop about 20 of them. That may seem like a lot of money, but if we don’t get the track right, it could cost billions.”

* * * * *

As Kermit makes its first pass through the eye wall, about halfway between Turks and Caicos and Hispaniola, Newman points to the water below.

“See how calm it is?” he says. That’s one way the crew knows they’re in the eye wall – it’s the calmest part of the storm.

The next two passes come in the darkness.

After the third pass, Ian Sears, a NOAA meteorologist and flight director, notes that the crew can tell the storm, which was a Category 1, is intensifying.

During the first pass, the eye wall, he says, was not well formed and the wind speed was about 80 knots. But by the third pass, things had changed.

“By the third pass, there was a nice-looking eye,” he says. “The winds were about 100 knots.”

As the plane heads back toward Tampa, Price grins as he takes a break back in the galley.

Newman, Olney and other experienced hurricane flyers say they have been on rides that “rattled kidneys,” but this eight-hour flight was not as turbulent as expected.

“I learned a lot on my first time,” Price said. “This was great OJT” – military parlance for on the job training.

~ Ryan, Beisel, HPA Grad

When I was told I would be flying into DFW, the first thing I thought of was HPA and those two grueling but ultimately rewarding weeks I spent there last year … I landed a dispatching job with LAN Airlines just a couple of months after HPA. I wish I had some time to stop by and say hi to everyone, especially Sandy.

~ Angel Romero, HPA Dispatcher Grad

Just wanted to quickly thank you for the hospitality and training! Tony and I only realized the day we left, one of your core values…Joy…It’s always a joy being around you guys, so a big thanks from us!

~ Martin Sons, HPA Grad

I had a wonderful experience…I’m back now and missing the HPA way of doing things. Friends and relationships are for a lifetime.

~ Mark Eaton, HPA Grad

When we arrived at the desk, the instructor said, “Ok, fellas…lets see what you’ve got for mission planning on today’s cross-country out and back…” We sheepishly plopped the fruits of our labors in front of him, and he carefully looked them over, one at a time, while inserting apparently genuine queries as to the correctness of various planning details. To each query, we explained our methods, and he shook his head in agreement as he scoured the documentation. Finally, he said, “Ok, those are all good plans….nice job. I’m sorry to inform you that now that you’ve done all that work, we’re not going to fly any of those flight plans. We were shocked, and looked at each other in amazement, feeling we had wasted all that time. Then he looked right at us and said, “You guys like hot sauce?”

Puzzled at this question, we reluctantly replied, almost in unison…” Uhhh, yes sir, I guess.” Sure we like hot sauce, but what does that have to do with the USAF flight school cross country syllabus? We were accustomed to straight-faced all-business flight operations that covered all the bases efficiently and in a military fashion, and this guy just pushed our planning to the side of the table and started talking about table-top condiments. Then he asked, “You guys like fishin’?” What is going on here, I thought but replied, “Sure, I guess I like fishing.”

“Good,” he replied, “cuz we’re gonna fly down to Louisiana today and get us some hot sauce right where they make it. Once we land there, we’re gonna drive a beat up truck to the seaway and see if we can catch us some bass fish. No, look at this chart right here…see Avery Island on there at the south coast of Louisiana?” We saw it as plain as day. Then he explained how we were going to get there. “Look, fellas…we’re gonna take off out of Vance under an IFR flight plan, but as soon as we get to our first fix, we gonna cancel IFR and just head south. That’s it. We’re just gonna fly south until we get to the bottom of the US, and then we’re gonna take a left 90 degree turn to the east, and follow the coast until we see Avery Island. We’ll look at the map along the way, but I want to show you how you can cover some good distance flying VFR.” This IP was showing us another approach to learning, and it was very inspiring. This is somebody who had us do all the traditional flight planning, and then wanted to show us how fun the aviation experience can be.

Along the flight, the IP pointed out places he used to live, where some of his kinfolk lived, and numerous closed military airfields. His knowledge of the Oklahoma and Texas airfields and geography was rather impressive. This was real flying. When we finally arrived at Avery Island, the IP took the jet, and basically gave us a tour of the factory and plantation. He explained some historical aspects; in fact, it was thorough aerial guided tour of the Tabasco estate. As I recall now, the other student did the landing, and I did the takeoff out of Avery Island and landing back at Vance. The other student did a pretty good landing, but felt he might have flared a bit high. We taxied to the FBO, requested fuel and went inside.

Once in the FBO, the staff recognized our IP and greeted him by name. There were hamburgers and chips already made ready for us on a table. The lady behind the desk asked, “How many poles, three?”, and the IP said “Yes, and can we get the keys to the loaner?” She complied, and handed him keys to what looked like the truck from Sanford and Son. This was an old, beat-up pickup from days gone by, and it sounded like it was going to give up the ghost at any minute. The IP drove us confidently though a maze of bumpy dirt roads, winding through tall wheat fields until we finally arrived at the seaway, which is basically a man-made lake shaped like a runway strip. We baited our hooks, cast the lines into the seaway, and the IP promptly commenced the debrief, stating “So, what did you think about your landing?” The other student said, “It was ok, but I think I flared a bit too high.” The IP said, “Yeah, you did. Good analysis.” Then the IP gave a few comments about power and pitch, but abruptly interrupted himself by telling us to get the hooks out of the water for an arriving biplane. After a while longer, he asked me how I was going to return to Enid. We spent about 15 minutes with those worms in the water, and it was just about the neatest way to talk about flying. I mean how can you be tense with your USAF flight instructor when you’re fishing with him in an active landing surface. It was very calming, and we had a good discussion, believe it or not. Soon it was time to pull them in and drive back.

On the way back to the FBO, along the bumpy dirt road, I saw some really tall wheat stalks, and commented on how cool and unique this flight experience was. The IP said to me, “Hey Bake…go grab one of those big wheat stalks, and when you take it back to the flight debrief room, you can brag about what you saw today.” I broke off a very tall stalk of whatever this stuff was… it was at least 8 feet tall. Back at the FBO, we bought some samples of Tabasco, and headed for the T-1. I flew my big ole stalk back to Enid, this time using more direct routing, and of course when we walked into the flight room, all the fellas saw the huge stalk that I was carrying and asked, “What the heck? Where did you get that?”

I simply smiled, and replied, “You guys like hot sauce?”

Regards,

Don “Hot Sauce” Baker

On a recent return visit to HPA, B737 grad Jim Allen commented on this famous picture. What we didn’t know was that Jim was in this crowd in January 2009 hosting then President George W. Bush in Iraq, the day the reporter threw his shoes at him. On base, Jim held up a sign that read, “Welcome Back to Texas, Sir! You will beat me back there!”  which prompted a long and hearty hand shake from the Boss.

Ever been “That Guy”?  In 2009 Dave Patterson seemed destined for that not-so-coveted title.

That year he led a team in a competition, the RODEO, where his responsibility was to supply Team Altus with what it took to win, but once the competition began, he was to be Mr. Hospitality and man the tent. The city of Altus had provided the support necessary to make this the place to be with free beverages and food, which attracted such visitors and dignitaries as General Officers and Chief Master Sergeants of the Air Force, even World War II retirees were stopping by.  If you know Dave, he was in his element, because he loves hearing and telling stories. 

One night as he was performing his hospitality duties with his beverage of choice in hand, a few of the city’s dignitaries motioned for him to join them.  They introduced him to a man with a cowboy hat and wearing what looked like a leather military jacket.  “Dave, this is Herb; Herb, this is Dave.”  He was asked to keep him company while they took a few minutes to conduct some business.  It was obvious this man was retired military and after he spent five minutes asking Dave questions such as where was he from, what did he fly, did he enjoy the Air Force, Dave found his chance to question him. “Are you retired?” He answered, “Retired, but I still stay involved in the business.”  Now Dave starts realizing that maybe this man might not be retired military.  So Dave asks what kind of business he was in.  He answers that he played around in the airline business a little bit.  Dave is slightly frustrated, because he can’t get a straight answer out of this guy, but maybe whatever he did in the airline business didn’t work out so well.  Now for a direct question:

“Well, what did you do in the airline business?”

“I started a little one a few years back.”

“Which one would that have been,” Dave says.

Herb replied with a big grin on his face, “SOUTHWEST AIRLINES.”

Embarrassing!!!  Dave felt about 3” tall at this moment.  After 10 minutes of talk, it hits Dave that this is Herb Kelleher and if he had not asked him what he did for a living, he would probably never have been told who he was.  What touched Dave the most was realizing that Herb Kelleher was there to support the military and was standing outside of a hospitality tent not entertaining those in the positions of power, but was talking to a 3” tall C-17 pilot who will always remember that day. 

Ralph has an A & P license, and is type rated in the B757/767, MD-80, and F-100 aircraft. He is an aerobatics competitor, and holds several state soaring records. Ralph also has 250 carrier landings from his twenty-two years in the Navy. Ralph retired as a B757/767 airline captain in 2005 from American Airlines. We’re glad you’re with us Ralph, and look forward to the benefits that our dispatch students will receive from your qualifications, experience and great attitude.

Dave Kirkendall stopped by HPA right before Thanksgiving with Matt Coppola to say hello to the staff. The guys just missed the Monday Pizza Social which had been changed to a Tuesday Thanksgiving Turkey-fest. Dave said his goodbyes prior to a one year A-10 assignment in Korea. Take care, Dave!

Derek Wideman returned to HPA to see old friends and found himself making some new ones. Derek came through HPA in 2009 and made a special gift at that time of framed, black and white photos he had taken, which have been complimented by many of our students coming through training. Derek soon found himself in the center of the B737 Classic course encouraging them also.