Aerosonde Flight Summary for 07/07/2005
Sortie Number: 050707-02
Take off: 1319
Landing: 2110
Flight Description:
Early communications problems led to the delay in handover starting the mission after launch. The aircraft was held offshore while a good comm link was established at 1430 and was then sent on its planned flight patten. However, due to the late start and delay in performing the first profile the mission flight pattern was abbreviated (from trianglar in shape to a simple line). AC126 was launched at 13:19UTC carrying sondes and the KT11.k6. After circling overhead the runway for a few minutes, the aircraft was sent to the wait box located 3mi offshore. Once in the wait box, control was handed off to the local command center. A straight line segment was flown from the wait box to a point approximately 200km to the E-SE at an altitude of 500ft. Soundings were performed at 70km and 200km from shore. After the final sounding, the aircraft was flown back to the wait box, control was handed over to the remote control center and landed at 21:10UTC for a total flight time of 7hr 51min.
Flight Objectives:
Initial science checkout flight to map SSTs and create vertical profiles of coastal and offshore basic meteorological parameters (press., temp., humidity, winds).
Instrument Performance:
Nominal
Flight Track:
