National Hurricane Research Project

Robert Simpson, a Weather Bureau meteorologist who had participated in Air Force hurricane reconnaissance flights as an observer, was appointed as the first director of NHRP and organized the Research Operations Base at Morrison Air Force Base (now Palm Beach International Airport) in West Palm Beach, FL in 1956.

[1] During the first three years of the Project, scientists used three specially instrumented Air Force Hurricane Hunters aircraft with crews on bailment from the 55th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron.

Simpson left the Project to complete his doctoral degree and Robert Cecil Gentry was appointed NHRP director.

The Department of Commerce leased two Douglas DC-6 aircraft and received a Martin B-57 Canberra jet from the Air Force so that NHRP could continue to carry out airborne experiments on hurricanes.

[2] Late in 1964, the Project was renamed the National Hurricane Research Laboratory in recognition of it becoming a permanent institution within the Weather Bureau.