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.