What's the worst that could happen?

Haha - I think I had a pinewood derby car when I was a Cub Scout that looked exactly like the Tornado Puncher now that you mention it.

 

They make hail maps for roofers.

 

I just don't understand why project VORTEX wasted so much money when you can just use a remote controlled tank to gather life saving research.

The biggest problem is that someone overlooked the legality of a using a remote controlled tank on the highway. These stunts always crack me up but given the current brain dead state of the media, I'm sure we will see TWC and CNN breaking in for live coverage. We saw how TWC took the bait for the last tornado tank project. Here we go again.

 

Really? So they're the origin of the hoards of scumbags that come knocking on my door 15 minutes after it hails. Screw these guys.

 

I'm glad my three year plan to build my intercept blimp - the Dirigible Over Helicity (or DOH) project has not yet been upstaged.

 

Have people tried using drones while storm chasing? I imagine they'd get wrecked pretty easily, but could maybe get some interesting videos or photos.

 

Will be trying out a drone for video this week just for fun. I'll post how it went. Only going to use it far enough away from the inflow though.... would like to still be able to use it after this week!

 

Don't tornadoes emit electromagnetic signals? Couldn't that interfere with driving it remotely?

 

Jamie I also have a drone and am gonna be trying it out this year for chasing, but there are a few limitations.
Firstly, regulations. To ensure safe flying there are a number of rules that must be satisfied before flying, some of which require a bit of time such as calling nearby airports, so flying might take a while.
Also, I'm not sure if anyone else can confirm this, but the few times I have tried, I felt like lightning may have been interfering with controls a bit. Not sure.
However, still excited to try it out this year.

I also know the EPIC project is using drones to sample the air ahead of severe thunderstorms.

 

Planned on getting some drone video last week, but with the storms cruising as fast as they did, we didn't even pull it out.
I imagine every drone is different, but the one we planned on using already had airports and other areas pre-programmed into it's GPS where it won't fly into those zones even if you try to get them to go in there.

 

Uh, as an engineer. My head hurts, it really hurts. You want to get data from a tornado, this would not be the way.

If some Springfieldian (Missouri) did this, I apologize to the entire group on behalf of them.