Research Flight

About a week ago I was able to go up on a research flight on the Navy P3, which holds the radar that I am helping out with. The picture you see here isn't very recent, but because we are on an Air Force Base I am not allowed to take pictures on the flight line since there are other military aircraft around. The plane has now been painted gray all over. The ELDORA radar is the white thing protruding from the back.

The plane can hold 15 people. 7 of those seats are typically reserved for Navy crew: pilots, navigators, safety officers, etc. The other 8 are filled with scientists and engineers. There are two other instruments of interest on the place, each with their own operators. There is a dropsonde system which is used to drop radiosondes out of the bottom of the aircraft, where they record temperature, dewpoint, and winds as they fall to the surface. Think of it as a radiosonde (weather balloon) in reverse. The other is a lidar, which uses beams of light (or "lasers" as Dr. Evil would say) to take measurements around the aircraft. I believe this is a cloud lidar so it is measuring some of the properties of clouds.

Once everyone was settled in we were off. The typical flight lasts anywhere from 6 to 10 hours. The one I was on was a 7 hour flight. Yes, there is a bathroom, along with a microwave and refrigerator. We have the option to buy a lunch from the Air Force before we leave, which most everyone does since it's such a long flight. $4 got me 2 tuna sandwiches, an apple, a bottle of water, a can of pop, a can of fruit juice, a bag of chips, a granola bar, a container of yogurt, and a rice krispie treat. Not a bad deal.

Because the weather is not always right around us we often have to ferry to get to the interesting stuff. This day was no different as we flew for probably an hour before getting into the weather we wanted. The radar is on the whole time and gives measurements that can be used to help us decide where to go. We were flying in and around developing thunderstorms and the idea is the get very close to them but not inside. We mostly succeeded. There are some times when there is no way out but to punch through the core of a developing one. That happened twice on this flight. It got a little bumpy but not too bad. The area we were flying in was a developing tropical system so none of the thunderstorms were very mature at this point. The day after we flew it it became a tropical storm and the day after that it was known as Typhoon Nuri.

On the flight I was mostly an observer, which entailed no real responsibility and gave me the freedom to wander around and ask lots of questions. The pilots encouraged anyone to come up front and have a look out those windows, which is great for putting the images from the radar into context. Plus, it's always fun to get to see out of the front of a plane for once. Not sure if I'll get to go up again while I'm here. Seats are at a premium on this project, but at least I got one chance to do it so I can't complain. I didn't bring my camera on this flight so the in-plane pictures below are courtesy of my friend Carlos.

The view from the galley (kitchen) in the back looking toward the front. The guy on the right is the dropsonde operator. The tube in which he inserts the dropsondes to go out of the bottom of the plane can be seen in the bottom middle of the image. The other two seats are used by engineers for the radar and the communications system.

Here I am looking at the radar displays during the flight.