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NASA gives Georges two last looks ER-2 makes an extra flight for CAMEX

 

Sept. 28, 1998: (this is the 20th in a series of stories covering the ongoing CAMEX mission to hunt new hurricane data at altitudes not flown since the 50s. Other stories are linked in below.) NASA's hurricane research team got two last, extra looks at Hurricane Georges on Sunday as the ER-2 flew over the hurricane Friday and Sunday as it approached and then battered the American Gulf Coast. This last look came a few days after the official end of the third Convection and Moisture Experiment (CAMEX-3), which collected an impressive amount of hurricane and tropical storm data. Right: This colorized GOES-8 image shows Hurricane Georges early Monday morning as it moved inland. This image was produced by Goddard Space Flight Center's Visualization of Remote Sensing Data Project. Links to 900x750-pixel, 102KB JPG.

Both ER-2 flights were staged from Warner Robbins Air Force Base, Ga., where the CAMEX-3 team had moved after Georges came too close to Patrick AFB, Fla., where the team had been operating. In Friday's mission, the ER-2 launched at 8:30 am EDT to sample Hurricane Georges as it was moving through Key West and along the western coastline of Florida. Dee Porter, the ER-2 pilot, flew east/west legs through the hurricane eye as the storm headed north. He then headed to Melbourne, Fla., to fly under the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite and over the TRMM rain gauge network and the S-POL radar. Porter noticed the hurricane eye would appear and disappear between eye crossings. He also experienced considerable turbulence at 19.2 km (63,000 ft). He reported that the turbulence smoothed out once he increased his altitude to 19.8 km (65,000 ft). He described the clouds surrounding the eye as a "bubbling cauldron." As comical sidelight, he also found that two pairs of Florida love bugs accompanied him in the cockpit during the trip. Left: After the mission, the DC-8 crew left behind some last images of Georges as seen from the flight deck. These images were taken by pilot Ed Lewis of NASA. Links to a 640x480-pixel, 95KB JPG. The final CAMEX-3 mission for the ER-2 started Sunday at 10:30 am EDT to sample the rain bands of Hurricane Georges north of the eye. Jim Barrilleaux, the ER-2 pilot, flew a triangular pattern from approximately Fort Walton Beach, Fla. due west to Slidell, La.

After this point, he headed southeast to 28 degrees N and 88 deg. W which should have been an area south of the forecast position of the eye. After passing through this point the pilot headed back to Fort Walton Beach. This triangular pattern was flown twice before the pilot broke off to fly under the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite at 2:14 pm EDT. He then returned to the triangular pattern for one more pass around. The total flight time was 6.5 hours. The ER-2 will now head back to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif., its operations base. The small band of scientists and instrument engineers who accompanied the aircraft to Warner Robbins will also travel home today.

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"All parties are leaving feeling tired but very happy" said Robbie Hood, the CAMEX-3 project scientist. "My thanks go to Dr. Ramesh Kakar, the Earth Science Program Manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington for his support of our activities this weekend and to the pilots, crew, scientists, engineers, NASA Ames Project Office, and the Warner Robbins staff who worked tirelessly to help execute our missions here in Georgia."

CAMEX-3/TEFLUN-B flight activities

	August
5	ER-2 arrives at Patrick Air Force Base
6	No-fly day
7	No-fly day
8	Shakedown over Andros Island Ground Station. The convective thunderstorm was exactly below the ER-2 flight track as predicted and we should have some good data from the flight.
9	No-fly day
10	DC-8 flies from Dryden Flight Research Center to Patrick AFB
11	No-fly day
12	No-fly day
13	TEFLUN B: Deep convection measurements over Melbourne, Fla., area. The TEFLUN-B ground coordination flight seems to be a large success. We had all three aircraft in stacked formation, on coordinated lines, through an active storm, instruments working well, with a TRMM satellite overpass.
14	No-fly day
15	TEFLUN B: Deep convection measurements over central Florida
16	No-fly day
17	No-fly day
18	No-fly day
19	No-fly day
20	TEFLUN B: Convection east of Cape Canaveral. Today's TEFLUN-B mission was highly successful. The ER-2 was canceled due to high cross winds. The DC-8 and UND Citation accomplished major goals in the stratiform rain environment while the TRMM satellite passed overhead. The NASA aircraft are on alert for a CAMEX-3, tropical storm Bonnie, flight tomorrow. The UND Citation is on alert for a possible TEFLUN-B mission.
21	CAMEX-3: Tropical Storm Bonnie synoptic flow measurements. The ER-2 was canceled due to high winds. The DC-8 did fly a synoptic flow mission on tropical storm Bonnie. Everything seems to be a success. Patrick AFB is officially on a HURCON 4 alert. The AF Battle Staff will meet at 1000 tomorrow. We need to prepare to evacuate the base tomorrow If we are not forced to evacuate, tomorrow will be a no fly day. Stay tuned.
22	TEFLUN B: Citation II TEFLUN mission was successful today; the NASA DC-8 and ER-2 had no-fly day. Patrick AFB issued a HURCON 3 posted at 1300 EDT. Plans are to perform another Bonnie mission tomorrow with DC-8 and ER-2. If HURCON 2 is issued, we will have to evacuate the area immediately. The aircraft will be sent to Warner-Robbins AFB, Macon, GA.
23	CAMEX-3: Hurricane Bonnie eye wall #1. DC-8 and ER-2 made extremely successful flights over the eye wall of hurricane Bonnie in coordination with the NOAA aircraft. They both overflew the Andros Island site on the return from Bonnie. Monday we will make another flight over hurricane Bonnie, planning closer coordination with NOAA aircraft Flight tracks over the hurricane will be similar to the ones flown on Sunday.
24	CAMEX-3: Hurricane Bonnie eye wall #2. CAMEX bagged another highly successful overflight of Hurricane Bonnie in conjunction with the NOAA WP-3 aircraft. The aircraft will stand down Tuesday, Aug. 25.
25	No-fly day
26	CAMEX-3: Hurricane Bonnie landfall. Another extremely successful flight day. Both ER-2 and DC-8 overflew Bonnie as it made landfall. There were three TRMM overpasses during the flight with the earliest overpass almost directly over the eye wall. Both NOAA Orions also flew coordinated patterns with the NASA aircraft. Tomorrow will be a no fly day and Friday a tentative hard down day. We anticipate the earliest opportunity for a Hurricane Danielle flight on Saturday, 29 August.
27	TEFLUN B: UND Citation II had a successful flight studying convection over the S-POL site.
28	No-fly day
29	CAMEX-3: Hurricane Danielle. Vortex motion and evolution and moisture inflow measurements by DC-8.
30	CAMEX-3: Hurricane Danielle. Vortex motion and evolution and moisture inflow measurements by DC-8.
31	No-fly day
	September
1	All aircraft will stand up for possible flights on hurricane Earl tomorrow. Science objectives will include both TEFLUN-B and CAMEX-3 objectives.
2	CAMEX-3: Hurricane Earl. Today's flight through the rain bands of Earl was a big success. Both TEFLUN and CAMEX objectives were met as tropical storm Earl was upgraded to a hurricane prior to launch. Tomorrow will be a no fly day.
3	No-fly day.
4	Today's NASA ER2 & DC8 TEFLUN-B flights were canceled due to weather conditions being too dynamic or nonexistent. All aircraft will stand up for TEFLUN objective flights tomorrow.
5	TEFLUN B: Todays TEFLUN flights studying stratiform rain were a success.
6	TEFLUN B: Todays TEFLUN flights studying stratiform rain were a success.
7	No-fly day.
8	TEFLUN B: Today the ER-2 and Citation flew developing convection over SPOL for three hours and twenty five minutes.
9	Today's flights were canceled.
10	Today's flights were canceled due to underdeveloped convection.
11	Todays flight was canceled because the easterly flow remains and little convection is expected within this scenario. With this expected to remain, we will have a hard down day tomorrow. Our next flight is expected to be a TEFLUN flight on Sunday but with the possibility of an Andros flight as a back-up.
12	No fly day.
13	Today's Andros ground calibration/validation seems to be a success. We will stand up for TEFLUN flights tomorrow afternoon.
14	TEFLUN B: Today's ER-2 flight was canceled due to predicted high cross winds. The DC-8 and Citation, however, did fly the TEFLUN mission over convective cells just off the coast of the Cape. Tomorrow all aircraft will stand up for coordinated TEFLUN flights.
15	TEFLUN B: The ER-2 flight scrubbed today due to high predicted cross winds. The DC-8 and Citation did fly their last coordinated TEFLUN mission for this experiment. Tomorrow will be a no-fly day for the NASA aircraft, but the Citation will depart Patrick.
16	No-fly day
17	TEFLUN B: Today's ER-2 and DC-8 TEFLUN flights were an excellent study of good convective lines and large stratiform regions. Tomorrow and Saturday will be no-fly days and as long as hurricane Georges doesn't hit Mach speed, Sunday will be an all day science meeting.
18	No-fly day
19	Science Symposium; No-fly day.
20	No-fly day
21	CAMEX-3: Hurricane Georges. Successful eye wall flight into Georges.
22	CAMEX-3: Hurricane Georges. Successful synoptic inflow mission around Georges.
23	CAMEX-3 concludes.

CAMEX-3 - the third Convection and Moisture Experiment - is an interagency project to measure hurricane dynamics at high altitude, a method never employed before over Atlantic storms. From this, scientists hope to understand better how hurricanes are powered and to improve the tools they use to predict hurricane intensity. An overview story (Aug. 12, 1998) describes the program in detail. The study is part of NASA's Earth Science enterprise to better understand the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. A midterm story (Aug. 31, 1998) reviews the first month of operations and the windfall of data. Measuring distance and speed Because meteorology and aeronautics first used modified nautical charts, their data bases are in nautical miles and knots (nautical miles per hour). In these stories, we use Standard International ("metric") units first, and give more familiar measurements in English units and the original measurements in nautical units. Because of rounding and because the wind speeds originally are expressed in knots, km/h speeds to knots may be slightly different from the numbers in the story. Standard International Units:  km - kilometer (1 km = 0.62 smi = 0.54 nmi)  km/h - kilometers per hour  English (or US) units:  mi, or smi - miles (statute miles; 1 smi = 0.87 nmi = 1.61 km) mph - (statute) miles per hour  Nautical units:  nmi - nautical miles (1 nmi = 1.15 smi= 1.85 km)  kts - knots (nautical miles per hour)

Join our growing list of subscribers - sign up for our express news delivery and you will receive a mail message every time we post a new story!!! More Headlines return to Space Science News Home Authors: Robbie Hood, Bart Geerts, and Dave Dooling Curator: Linda Porter NASA Official: Gregory S. Wilson