Some people just can't pass up a bet.

Among those people is Col. Colonel Joseph Duckworth, an officer in the Air Force who took the bet of a lifetime back in 1943 to fly through a hurricane.

“That's when the U.S. basically discovered that we can actually fly airplanes through tropical systems,” Lt. Col. Ryan Rickert, chief meteorologist of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, said.

Duckworth was able to safely return to his base in Bryan, Texas, after successfully flying through the 1943 storm. But as soon as he returned, he was asked by a weather officer to be flown into that same storm. 

This was the first unofficial data retrieval, and the stepping stones for the hurricane hunters to be born. 

Rickert says, like most good things, the Hurricane Hunters have evolved. 

“The type of aircraft we have is the C130J Hercules. We have 10 of those, and those are the airplanes that the Air Force has offered us to fly through hurricanes,” Rickert said.

The unit gets a request from the National Hurricane Center to go to whatever threat may be looming in the Gulf of Mexico or Open Atlantic. 

"We collect all of the weather information, we direct the crew, and we make sure that it is good data that we send to the hurricane center,” Rickert said.

That unit is largely responsible for the tropical forecast you see when there's a potential storm threat. 

It’s also the same data Channel 5 News will be presented with during the newscasts.

“We're providing real data that's going into these models, that is ground truth,” Rickert said.

So when there's a potential threat to land from a tropical system, the Hurricane Hunters are there to give the public to prepare.

Watch the video above for the full story