28 July 2003 – Flight 816

Research Flight from GXY

Pilot: Charlie Summers

T.O. ~00:20 UT

T.D. 01:12 UT

Weather situation similar to Flt 815. Wait for mountain convection to move out into plains, or for the Cheyenne Ridge to fire. About 21:00 UT echoes began to develop on the Cheyenne Ridge. By 22:00 UT they were drifting slowly southeastward. These cells were “up and down” with about 1 hr lifetimes. This type of activity continued into the later afternoon at which time the storms appeared to have sufficiently long lifetimes to warrant an aircraft study.

At 00:26 there was a field meter test. There also was an attempted NO analyzer test, but it turns out that the machine was never turned on. The aircraft went on to penetrate several small convective storms about 30 nmi north of CHILL. Updrafts were weak and precipitation was very light.

The pilot reported bad P-static problems. Data were not closely examined in the field.