GULF SHORES, Ala. - Whenever dangerous tropical weather looms in the Gulf of Mexico, most of us are making preparations to get out of town.

  Lt. Colonel Floyd Plash with the Air Force Reserve and other members of the 403rd Wing at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss. don’t just stick around, they actually fly into the center of the weather long before it reaches land.

  Plash, a Gulf Shores native and 1975 graduate of Foley High School, received a bachelor of science degree in criminal investigation with aerospace studies in 1979 from Troy University.

  Plash now lives in Ocean Springs, Miss. with his wife of two years, Cherry. He and his late wife Judy, whom he met in college and who also served in the Air Force, had three sons together: Robert, 25, Michael, 22, and Kevin, 19.

  “I entered the Air Force because I wanted to fly airplanes,” Plash said. “Flying is the most exciting part of what we do, the downside is the unknown of turbulence and severe lightning that we encounter inside the storm.”

  The squadron utilizes the WC-130J for its weather missions. The planes, typically operated by a five person crew consisting of two pilots, navigator, weather officer of the National Weather Service, and loadmaster, are flown into the center of a storm and usually stay there collecting data for about six hours.

  “Weather missions are usually very long, we spend about three hours getting to the storm and then another three hours on the return trip after the data has been collected.”

  According to Plash, during the six hour period within the storm, the planes are flown in zig-zag patterns about four different times at an altitude of about 10,000 feet. When a storm first develops, the planes may fly at an even lower altitude of around 1,000 feet.

  “During the six hour period we’ll cover all four quadrants of a storm,” Plash said. “The plane is fairly stable during this time, but things can become quite difficult whenever a storm is changing characteristics.”

  Weather missions are generally conducted once a day over open waters but can occur up to four times a day as a storm approaches landfall, which means a crew is there virtually all of the time.

  Aside from tropical weather, the squadron conducts winter storm missions to the Boston, Mass. area from November 1 until April 15 and provides various cargo missions.

  “The thing I like most about what we do is helping the people of the United States obtain valuable weather data in order to keep safe,” Plash said.