19 May 2003 – Flight 800

Research Flight from OUN

Pilot: Tom Warner

T.O. 23:40 UT

T.D. 25:08 UT

Launch on storm ~12 nmi due south of KTLX radar. Initial heading is eastward, but then flight is redirected toward the south for cell that is being targeted by the TELEX electrical ballooning group. At 23:55 UT a first pass is made toward the southwest and T-28 is barely into the cloud bases at 16 kft MSL. On the return pass to the northeast he is a bit higher, but still barely into the bases of the clouds. At the point a new target is selected to the east, ~30 nmi SE of KTLX. This storm is apparently associated with a line of cells along a front extending from southwest to northeast, just east of KTLX. The first pass is made at 24:18 along the south side of the storm, still just barely into the cloud bases. Several subsequent passes are made through this storm over the next 40 minutes, which was one of the longer-lasting storms along the frontal band. Hail up to quarter size was encountered.

HVPS images had some problems, hail images were no good at all, and 2D-C images were OK. The 1-D hail spectrometer data are OK. Rate-of-climb data are no good.