The armored T-28 deployed to Ft. Collins-Loveland Airport (FNL), for 4
weeks in June, 1999, to join two other aircraft and the two S-band radars
operated by the CSU-CHILL Radar Facility for coordinated thunderstorm penetrations.
The other two aircraft, a Convair 580 operated by Allied Signal/Honeywell,
and a Rockwell Sabreliner operated by Rockwell-Collins, carried prototype
Doppler airborne weather avoidance radars. In a typical mission, the T-28
would lead a flight of 3, with the other two aircraft in-trail, on penetrations
of convective clouds. The radars from the trailing aircraft scanned
the region in which the T-28 was flying. Accelerometer and other
performance data from the T-28 is used to estimate the severity of turbulence,
and forms the basis for improving the algorithms for estimation of
turbulence intensity from the returns received by the airborne radars.
In addition, these data will be used for comparison with turbulence
diagnosed from model simulation of these convective clouds, in order to
improve the capabilities of these models to give reliable indications of
location and intensity of turbulence associated with convective storms.
The project was very successful, with operations by one or more aircraft
on 16 of 24 possible days, including multiple operations involving all
3 aircraft on one day. The CSU-CHILL and Pawnee S-band Doppler radars,
both operated by the CSU-CHILL radar facility, were used to provide guidance
for the aircraft missions, as well as to record dual-Doppler and multiparameter
radar data for later use in guiding the model simulations. The Research
Applications Program of the National Center for Atmospheric Research provided
forecasting and nowcasting, a daily radiosonde profile, and subsequently
will carry out analysis of the T-28 data and will perform the model simulations.
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Flight 724 - 6/02/99
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Flight 725 - 6/05/99
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Flight 726 - 6/09/99
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Flight 727 - 6/10/99
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Flight 728 - 6/11/99
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Flight 729 - 6/11/99
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Flight 730 - 6/12/99
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Flight 731 - 6/14/99
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Flight 732 - 6/17/99
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Flight 733 - 6/18/99
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Flight 734 - 6/19/99
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Flight 735 - 6/20/99
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Flight 736 - 6/21/99
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Flight 737 - 6/22/99
The
report from this field project is now available
in PDF format, which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have
this program, you can download it at
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html.
