Mission Debrief
Flight Number: 87
Debrief Author: Kim
Date: 08/08/02
Pilot: Jason McDermitt
Launch Time: 17:24:00
Land Time: 20:56:00
Miami Nexrad Status: Operational
Key West Nexrad Status: Operational
NPOL Status: Operational Status unknown
Mission Description:
Fly to the Everglades to investigate thunderstorms.
Mission Objective:
Mission Summary:
Take off at 1724 UTC. Fly to warning area 174C and obtain altitude to 42 kft. Fly to the Everglades. No thunderstorms developed in the target area. The Altus loitered for approximately 1 hour over the Everglades and flew triangular patterns. The Altus landed back at 2056 UTC.
Instruments/Aircraft/Ground Assets:
Instruments were functional. Condensation on the scientific instruments and its affect on the readings were noted. Aircraft functioned exceptionally well today.
Weather:
Total bust today. We had forecast some tstm activity in the southern region near Florida Bay and Cape Sable around 1500L, but the cu fields were just too supressed. One cell fired over MIA and produced one lightning flash detected by NLDN, but other than that, any kind of convection in the whole penninsula was completely supressed by the dry pocket of air that dropped straight down the state. Very visible in the water vapor channels of the satellite imagery. Oh well, the pilots seemed to like the nice weather.
As it turns out, there were some isold tstms over the penninsula near sunset, and several popped over the ocean around 1900, but these would have been outside of our flight window.
Total Flight Time: 3 Hours 32 Minutes
