NOAA Hurricane Hunters

The Aircraft Operations Center is a complement of commissioned personnel from the NOAA Commissioned Corps, federal employees and contractors under the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO), which is a line office of the NOAA, which is in turn an agency of the Department of Commerce.

With permission from Jim Henson Productions, NOAA's P-3s are nicknamed Kermit the Frog (N42RF) and Miss Piggy (N43RF).

[4] NOAA has announced that they have awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to produce two modern WC-130J Hercules aircraft to replace the aged WP-3D Orion.

Most often, the scientists and crew aboard the aircraft deploy dropsondes with GPS which collect and transmit data as they descend toward the ocean.

Past projects use the WP-3 have included low level jet observation over South America, a bow echo and mesoscale convective study in the Midwest, and ocean wind satellite verification missions over the Northern Atlantic and Pacific.

The G-IV flies around the periphery of both tropical and winter storms, including hurricanes, and deploys dropsondes in order to gather data about the surrounding environment.

One of the pair of NOAA's Lockheed WP-3D Orions
Artist's rendition of the C-130J hurricane hunter variant to be delivered to NOAA in 2030.
NOAA's Gulfstream IV-SP