Abstract:In terms of marine observation, aircraft observation has a huge potential to fill the blank of upperair sounding. One of important methods to observe typhoons is to use dropsondes. The UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) can fly around a typhoon and can directly fly into the eye of a typhoon to observe its major meteorological elements in real time. Combining with GPS dropsondes, which are equipped with temperature, humidity, and pressure sensors and wind measurement equipment by GPS, it can make threedimensional observation in the eye of a typhoon. For the past years, dropsondes can grasp the whole structure and realtime dynamic information of typhoons, which do help to improve the accuracy of intensity and track prediction of typhoons. Aircraft dropsondes have changed from scientific experiments into operational application, leading to a new observation technology, target observation. The examples and technologies of international experiments using aircrafts with dropsondes to observe typhoons are summarized, which may offer some valuable references in experiences and modern technologies for typhoon experiments in China.