The All Weather Flying Center based at Clinton County Army Airfield, Ohio, was formed in 1946 to develop procedures to operate aircraft under all conditions of weather and visibility.

The multicoloured markings were  applied only at the All Weather Flying Center at Clinton County AB in 1947, where the aircraft participated in chasing tornadoes as part of Operation Thunderstorm.

P-61 Black Widows and P-47's also operated out of Clinton for these duties.

 

The aircraft shown below, were all heavily involved in the Thunderstorm Project (1946–1949) that was a landmark program dedicated to gathering data on thunderstorm activity. The project was a cooperative undertaking on the part of four U.S. government agencies: the U.S. Weather Bureau and the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, later to become NASA), assisted by the U.S. Army Air Forces and Navy. Scientists from several universities also participated in the initiation, design and conduct of the project. The project's goal was to learn more about thunderstorms and to use this knowledge to better protect civil and military airplanes that operated in their vicinity.

The P-61's radar and particular flight characteristics in particular enabled it to find and penetrate the most turbulent regions of a storm, and return crew and instruments intact for detailed study.

The Florida phase of the project in 1946 continued into a second phase carried out in Ohio during the summer of 1947. Results derived from this pioneering field study formed the basis of the scientific understanding of thunderstorms, and much of what was learned has been changed little by subsequent observations and theories. Data was collected for the first time from systematic radar and aircraft penetration of thunderstorms, forming the basis of many published studies that are still frequently referenced by mesoscale and thunderstorm researchers.

See my P-61 site for more detail

 

 

There mission was to chronicle a joint U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Weather Bureau Project at Wright Field and the All - Weather Flying Station at Wilmington, Ohio.

The pilots were all volunteers and were used to study the mechanics of thunderstorms, equipped with planes that filmed their control panels as they flew.

The pilots experimented with the safest ways of navigating through the violent storms. The pilots were then interrogated the on their airborne experiences.

 

 

Below can be seen several types of aircraft used at the all weather flying center