1998 Intrumentation Tests (TINT 1998)

Overview

The armored T-28 deployed to Ft. Collins-Loveland Airport (FNL), for two weeks in June, 1998, for flight tests of new and refurbished research equipment.  New equipment included a Science Engineering Associates (SEA) data acquisition system, a Droplet Measurement Technologies (DMT) liquid water probe, a video recording system,  a prototype Stratton Park Engineering Corporation High Volume Particle Spectrometer Probe (HVPS), and two systems of electric field meters mounted in underwing pods from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMIMT).  A newly refurbished Particle Measuring Systems, Inc. (PMS) Forward Scattering Spectrometer Probe (FSSP), was also flown for the first time.

In-flight guidance was available to the pilots from the ground, via radio link with the CSU-CHILL S-band meteorological research radar. Six research flights in small to large convective storms, in the vicinity of the CHILL radar, were carried out within the two-week program.

Most of the equipment worked well, in some cases after some tinkering. The NMIMT field meter pods proved to have a negative effect on aircraft performance and handling and caused the facility to re-direct its efforts to improve the T-28 electric field meter system.  Plans to build pod meters for the T-28 were changed and instead a 6th meter was added to the system of 5 meters mounted at various locations on the airframe. Also, the unrefurbished PMS OAP-2D-C two-dimensional particle imaging probe showed erratic behavior, leading to a subsequent significant refurbishment.

Research Flights

Reports
  • Detwiler, Andrew G., 1998: T-28 System Tests in Severe Storm Environments. Memorandum.

  • Radar and aircraft observations of microphysical evolution in updraft regions of a High Plains multicellular thunderstorm.



    • Data Access
    TINT 1998 Data Access

    Other Project Web Pages
    None known.