Project #2002-112 IDEAS Phase 2

Instrument Development and Education in Airborne Science

J. Stith, et al.

NSF/NCAR C-130Q Hercules (N130AR)

Jeff Stith's RF02 Summary

(10/09/2002 -- 18:29:43-21:24:49 UTC)

A successful IDEAS mission was concluded today, mostly for remote sensing and testing of several chemistry instruments for Teresa, Eric, and Britt. We flew from JefCo to the area of the Hayman fire in the boundary layer west of Denver, made a low (9500') pass over the burn area, then continued east over the area of the Black Forest, while staying in the BL as the terrain decreased. We made passes over these regions (Black Forest and Burn area) at mid levels (10.5 k') around 19:48 (UTC). At 20:09 we climbed to 17.5k' for reverse tracks over these regions. This was followed by airspeed and pitch maneuvers at 17.5k' between 20:34 and 20:45.

Although we had planned for mostly clear air, Cu humulus and slightly larger Cu were found in the sampling region and we made several passes through a few of them while collecting slide samples (and CCN) on the sides and below the cloud. Drop concentrations were high (800 cm-3) and the air below the base was somewhat polluted.

We finished with a pass over Marshall for calibration of AIMR against the ground source, which appeared to be successful.

Most systems appeared to be working properly today.

Jeff Stith

Last update: Wed Oct 30 10:30:28 MST 2002