Lear 36 FASTEX Flight Number 8 Summary
Aircraft: Lear36/ N12FN (Call Sign FNT 212)
Date: 14 February 1997
Take-off: 1115 UTC (YYT - St. John's, Newfoundland)
Landing: 1545 UTC (YYT - St. John's, Newfoundland)
Pilots: Gordon Stevenson and John Huchowski (both of Flight International, Inc.)
Navigator: John Huchowski
Crew #1 (on board scientist) : Ray Ramos (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)
Crew #2 (dropsonde operator): Dean Lauritsen (NCAR)
Proposed Flight Plan
Take-off : 1100 UTC 14 February 1997
1) St. John's
2) Turn Point #1 40N 50W
3) Turn Point #2 50N 35W (or 40W)
4) Turn Point #3 48N 50W
5) St. John's
One drop at each turning point Additional drops: 4 on first leg, 6 on second
leg, and 6 on 3rd leg, for a total of 19 drops.
- - - - - - - - -
Synopsis:
Due to fuel constraints, an alternative route was taken near turn point 2.
We turned due north at 47N 40W, then west at 40N 50W and back to St. John's.
All 19 drops were deployed, however, drop 10 recorded no wind data and drops
11 and 12 recorded good thermodynamic data (temp, pressure, rel. humidity), but
the channel they were on (#1) was running slowly. Therefore, the raw thermo data
is there, but must be recovered at a later time.
Despite repeated requests to ascend to FL 410, all drops had to be deployed at
FL 270. The first request to New York went unanswered, as did a later request to
Gander. Finally an answer was given on the third request, during the final leg that
FL140 was not possible due to air traffic.
- - - - - - - - -
Summary of drop times, locations ( in degrees (d)) , flight level (FL) data
drop/time(UTC)/FL(hundreds of feet)/FL(temp C)/FL wind (ddd@ff)/lon/lat
01) 1131 270 -44 339@86 52d10.7' 45d58.3'
02) 1143 270 -43 339@107 51d40.3 ' 44d27.8'
03) 1154 270 -44 334@101 51d00.2' 43d00.7'
04) 1205 270 -44 331@87 50d28.8' 41d30.8'
05) *1220 270 -44 333@83 49d46.8' 39d59.3'
06) 1240 270 -44 298@139 48d17.3' 41d28.6'
07) 1303 270 -43 297@118 46d18.6' 42d59.8'
08) 1321 270 -41 279@83 44d10.3' 44d36.6'
09) 1341 270 -39 267@64 42d08.6' 45d55.1'
10) *1400 270 -39 240@51 39d53.9' 47d22.0'
11) 1405 270 -41 212@90 39d58.9' 47d58.8'
12) 1410 270 -42 213@74 40d00.0' 48d38.2'
13) 1418 270 -42 220@76 40d01.4' 49d36.2'
14) *1423 270 -44 215@47 40d12.0' 50d01.9'
15) 1432 270 -44 149@49 41d30.5' 49d45.5'
16) 1444 270 -44 165@21 43d25.4' 49d26.0'
17) 1458 270 -47 224@24 45d29.3' 49d01.3
18) 1512 270 -46 281@49 47d34.0 48d35.0'
19) 1531 270 -46 288@107 49d58.5' 47d59.5'
Notes: 1) (*) Turning points . These drops were
made after the turn was completed.
*******
Appended observations/notes
Observations from plane at each drop (starting with Drop 7; droptimes
noted above)
1) Scattered cumulus, 30%
2) Scattered cumulus, 50%
3) Scattered cumulus, 20%
4) Broken cumulus, 70%
5) Broken cumulus, 80%
6) Scattered cumulus, 30%
7) Broken cumulus, 60%
8) Multi-layered: thin cirrus (10%) above broken cumulus (90%)
9) 100% undercast, stratocumulus
10) Altocumulus, 40%
11) Altocumullus, 60%
12) Cumulus, 20%
13) Cumulus, 40%
14) Altocumulus, 90%
15) Multi-layered: cirrostratus above 100% altocumulus
16) Cirrostraturs, 100%
17) Broken cumulus 50%
18) Scattered cumulus, 40%
19) Scattered cumulus, 30%
Total flight time:n/a but will follow on later email
Total flight distance: n/a but will follow also
Ray Ramos
rramos@meteor.wisc.edu