On August 16, 1943, information from an Army Air Force flight into a tropical storm east of Miami was relayed in ‘real time’ to the Joint Miami Hurricane Warning Center, and the information was used to update their analysis. This was the first time a center position of a tropical cyclone was ‘fixed’ by aircraft and relayed via radio to hurricane forecasters.

The mission came just 3 weeks after the first deliberate flight into the eye of a hurricane.  Word of Lt. Col. Duckworth’s exploits had spread quickly that it was possible to safely maneuver an aircraft into a tropical cyclone and even find the eye and ‘fix’ it.  Hurricane reconnaissance has become an invaluable tool of hurricane monitoring ever since.