- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: WW Norton; New edition edition (May 27 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393324486
- ISBN-13: 978-0393324488
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 14.1 x 2.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 290 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,236,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
Toomey is an English professor who also teaches technical writing and coauthored Amelia Earhart's Daughters. So he seems like the right man to take on the post-World War II fighter pilots who happily volunteered to fly into hurricanes with occasionally lethal consequences.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Using the 1955 disappearance of a navy weather plane inside a hurricane as his reference point, Toomey roams about the presatellite history of research into the tempests. Knowledge about hurricanes was so rudimentary that determining their cyclonic structure was considered progress. From that discovery in the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, advances in knowledge and forecasting were modest. By interspersing the history of hurricane research with the preparations of the ill-fated navy crew, Toomey effectively points out how insufficient understanding of meteorological conditions impelled weather planes to fly in such dangerous conditions. Besides the informative technical coverage about hurricane behavior, the twin-engine Neptune plane, and its weather instrumentation, Toomey delivers an understated narrative that ennobles crew members. He doesn't inflate basic information that's known about them, and alludes to their awareness of the perils in their assignment. Toomey's dramatization of scenarios of what might have happened to the crew--a ditching in the storm's eye or midair wing failure--will keep readers rapt. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
At the edge of space, hundreds of miles above Earth, so high the curve of the horizon is clearly visible, a few thin wisps are pulled from the thin skein of atmosphere into the emptiness of space, where they are wafted by solar winds and magnetic fields. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
At the edge of space, hundreds of miles above Earth, so high the curve of the horizon is clearly visible, a few thin wisps are pulled from the thin skein of atmosphere into the emptiness of space, where they are wafted by solar winds and magnetic fields. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Final Mission,
By A Customer
This review is from: Stormchasers (Paperback)
In late September 1955, a tropical depression in the Caribbean became the 10th hurricane of the season--Janet. The Naval Air Station in Jacksonville followed standard procedure, sending out hurricane hunters from Gauantanamo Bay, Cuba, on what should have been a routine reconnaisance mission. But Lt. Cmdr. Grover Windham and his crew of eight never returned from their flight into the eye of the storm. What happened? Toomey recounts the possible scenarios as he reconsiders the drama, but he also uses the tragedy to discuss the relatively There was no Doppler radar, no satellite imaging, no global-positioning systems. The twin-engine Neptune plane was outfitted witht he cutting-edge technology of the day---butu meterologists used pencil and paper to make graphs, and pilots still looked at the waves below to estimate their position. Crew Five really didn't know what it would find with Hurricane Janet. It's final radio transmission at 8:30 a.m. ended, "Beginning penetration."
4.0 out of 5 stars
In the face of daunting odds and tremendous danger....,
By jeanne-scott (Virginia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stormchasers (Hardcover)
David Toomey's well researched book has an astounding wealth of information that is both stunning in detail and fascinating in every aspect. This book drew my attention because of my own obsession with hurricanes, having been through several in North Carolina,(to include Fran, Bonnie,and Floyd ). During Floyd we were in the eye of the storm at night and went out and looked up into a clear, silent sky and watched as suddenly a hurricane hunter flew overhead, the only sound at all.David Toomey details the thoughts that went into the changing views of weatheras a philosophy and the evolution into the science of meteorology. This transformation from philosophy to science is interesting. Weather phenomena was thought to be only a local event and the idea that weather traveled from one area to another was not even imagined. The idea of weather patterns was a foreign concept as well. Toomey details this transformation which spans the continents, including battles of very differing ideas. The leap in the quantity of scientific data and reliability of it's use from the the 1950's to present time is amazing. This scientific evolution was also a big push in the development of computers, originally called a "calculating clock"(in 1623), then "stepped reckoner" (1673), and then a giant leap to the "Difference Engine" in the 1830's. This subject in and of itself would have been a great subject. Throughout all of this history of meteorology, the key aspect of this book centers on the people that flew into the hurricanes to obtain the data that would revolutionize hurricane forecasting. Their lives are opened and the picture that is viewed is of normal, everyday men. They saw their mission in life and pursued it, even in the face of daunting odds and tremendous danger. David Toomey has written a book that covers the world of hurricanes from the science to the very human and intimate aspects that surround them and has done so in a way that both educates and captivates your attention.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stormchasers,
By A Customer
This review is from: Stormchasers (Hardcover)
This glimpse into 1940's and 50's Navy airmen's exploration of hurricanes is fascinating reading, from a scientific and a human perspective. I've never read nonfiction that captured my imagination and attention so well. It's amazing to me that this story hadn't been told before. How did we come this far into the space age without knowing that people have been flying into hurricanes to study them since the 1940's? And why did those particular people believe they could, without sophisticated instruments, fly into hurricanes and come out again? This book provides suspense while informing the reader of historic events surrounding the world of weather forecasting. I look forward to reading what David Toomey writes next.
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