Most pilots say the objective is to fly around thunderstorms and icy clouds. But for three decades, Peter Hobbs has been ordering his aviators to fly him directly into raging storms.
Only in the thick of cumulonimbus can the cloud microphysicist gather the data he needs to understand the origins of precipitation. Hobbs has spent his career seeking the answers to the mysteries of rain, spending thousands of hours calmly crunching data while some white-knuckled pilot navigates his flying laboratory through electrical storms and ice clouds.
It is an obsession, and one deeply ingrained in the human psyche: the desire to understand the mystery of weather, and perhaps to control it. Peter Hobbs, a man with his head firmly in the clouds, winging in the rain.
Guests:
Peter Hobbs, founder and director of the Cloud and Aerosol Research Group at the University of Washington
Ken McMillen, retired Navy commander and pilot for CARG for 13 years.