Flight ID:
- 950505I
Flight Track:
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Chief Scientist: Westwater/Watson Flight Director: Parrish Doppler Radar: Shepherd/Lewis Pilots: Tenneson/Kennedy Cloud Physics: --- Data Technician: McNamara Radiometer: Westwater/Trokhimouski Systems Engineer: Lynch Observers: Takeoff Time: 1850 UTC Landing Time: 2244 UTC Official Mission Duration: 4.2 hrs Mission Breakdown VORTEX: 0.0 hrs ARM: 4.2 hrs Number of Data Tapes Used: Radar: 1 Cloud Physics: 1 Video: 3Data Systems Log
Radar Data System Log Time On(UTC) Time Off(UTC) Comments Tape #1 1914 Begin LF/TA 1950 Radar rebooted Data not saved 2007 Begin LF/TA 2225 Stop recording Cloud Physics Log Time On(UTC) Time Off(UTC) Comments 1910 2225 ETL Radiometer Log Time On (UTC) Time Off (UTC) Comments 1845 2247 Excellent data
The ARM flight plan was to travel northwest to the Vici Boundary
Facility (BF) where clouds were increasing as a disorganized precipitation
band entered western Oklahoma.
The P-3 departed OKC at 1844 UTC with increasing middle and high
clouds occurring on our northwest track toward Vici. We descended to
500' AGL below a thin layer of Sc as we approached Vici. The north-south
band of precipitation was just west of Vici on our arrival.
We set up 8-9 min legs toward the norhhwest ahead of the
precipitation band and porpoising up and down through the low deck of clouds
when possible. At 2030 UTC, we began an ascent/descent sounding at Vici to
FL230 to coincide with the Vici BF sounding. The sounding was practically in
the middle of the precipitation band never reaching the cloud tops.
Next we headed east and southeast looking for suitable clouds,
encountering problems with air traffic control and an advancing squall line
from the southwest. We tracked to a point northeast of OKC ahead of the
squall line, then reversed our track only to find new cells developing
ahead of the squall line. We crossed behind the line still not finding
suitable clouds. We returned to OKC at 2244 UTC, consuming 4.2 hours.
Irv Watson