Thinking again about the fact that no one had flown a hurricane and that it ought to be easy because of the circular flow, Joe suggested to Ralph: “Let’s go down and get an AT-6 and penetrate the center, just for fun.” He said it would be “for fun” because he felt sure that higher headquarters probably would not approve the risk of the aircraft and highly trained personnel for an official flight. There were three or four newly arrived B-25’s at the field but Duckworth had not had the time to check out in one of them and therefore could not fly a B-25 (a twin-engine airplane) without going through some formalities. Use of the AT-6, of course, involved the danger that its one engine might quit inside the hurricane and they would be in trouble. Lieutenant O’Hair was quite willing—enthusiastic in fact—and the pair gathered such information as was available about the hurricane and made ready for the flight. They took off in the AT-6 shortly after noon. The data on the storm had been rather meagre. Two days before, Forecaster W. R. Stevens at New Orleans had deduced from the charts that a tropical storm was forming in the Gulf to the southward. He drew his conclusion almost solely from upper air data at coastal stations, for no ships were reporting from the Gulf. On the twenty-sixth, Stevens had correctly tracked it westward toward Galveston (quite a feat in view of the lack of observations) and warnings had been issued in advance. On the morning of the twenty-seventh, this small but intense hurricane was moving inland on the Texas Coast, a short distance north of Galveston, and by early afternoon the winds were blowing eighty to one hundred miles an hour on Galveston Bay and in Chambers County, to the eastward of the Bay. Houston and Galveston were in the western or less dangerous semicircle, a favorable condition for the flight from Bryan to Houston. Soon after leaving Bryan, the venturesome airmen were in the clouds on the outer rim of the storm—with scud and choppy air—and shortly after they ran into rain. Precipitation static began to give them trouble in communications but there was no other serious difficulty. As they approached Houston, the air smoothed out, the static leaked off the plane, the radio was quiet, and the overcast grew darker. They called Houston. The airways radio operator was surprised when they said their destination was Galveston. “Do you know there is a hurricane at Galveston?” the operator asked. “Yes, we do,” said O’Hair. “We intend to fly into the thing.” “Well, please report back every little while,” the operator requested. “Let me know what happens.” Evidently, he wanted to be able to say what became of the plane if they went down in the storm.