by Frank Flocke (NCAR/ACD)
Image taken from the NSF/NCAR GV forward looking camera during the last research flight for DC3.
Today, June 30, 2012, is the final science flight for the NCAR/NSF GV in the DC3 project. We will have flown 22 missions out of Salina taking us to Colorado, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, and to Alabama, to sample convective systems (thunderstorms) in these regions.
Some flights took us to other areas – mostly over the Central and Eastern US – to sample air that had been impacted by convection the day before and/or look at the air chemistry during or after one day of chemical processing.
On Thursday we flew our last thunderstorm mission, as it happens, to Colorado. That convective system moved on to cause all the destruction in the Washington, DC area last night.
Today’s flight is partially dedicated to the calibration of some meteorology and state parameter instruments, requiring a set of special aircraft maneuvers, before the GV returns home to its base at Rocky Mountain Metro Airport in Broomfield, Colorado.
We all learned a lot, met new colleagues, and, to different degrees, learned to appreciate Central Kansas. It was fun working together in DC3, and here in Salina.
