Mission Debrief
Flight Number: 89
Debrief Author: Kim
Date: 08/12/02
Pilot: Jason McDermitt
Launch Time: 14:49:00
Land Time: 16:13:00
EDOT Status: Operational
Miami Nexrad Status: Operational
Key West Nexrad Status: Operational
NPOL Status: Operational NPOL is fully functional and is located on Ramrod Key
Mission Description:
Investigate isolated thunderstorms in the ACES target domain (Everglades and the surrounding Ocean).
Mission Objective:
Fly to the Everglades and fly over and in vicinity of thunderstorms (if possible, during the entire duration of the storm from start to finish)
Mission Summary:
The Altus took off and was climbing in the warning area when the telemetry indicated high cylinder head temperature. A return to base was intiated at that time and the plane safely returned to the airfield. The Altus reached a maximum altitude of ~30 kfeet and was in the air for 1 hour and 24 minutes. During the altitude climb, there were 9 trigger events from nearby storms.
The cause for the high temperature was the radiator cap. A new radiator cap was used for this flight, per replacement schedule, and it was from a different lot and was just different enough that radiator fluid was lost. 1 Gallon of radiator fluid was lost and it caused the over temperature. This did not propigate any other failures on the Altus.
Instruments/Aircraft/Ground Assets:
Ground based field mill did not work today. Moisture maybe the problem.
The routing of the warm air to the front camera lense seem to have cured the fogging problem. Great job by the Altus crew.
The Altus crew changed tires and brake pads on the Altus prior to this flight.
The Gerdien seem to indicate at 30,000 that it was not working correctly. Better cleaning maybe able to fix the problem.
Weather:
Tstms forecast to begin in the southern tip of FL around 1400, with VFR wx at base for return. No sig weather during shortened flight. Tstms began in our FL area about 1330L. Had we been able to continue flight, we would have had at least two active cells to work.
Total Flight Time: 1 Hour 24 Minutes
