Aircraft Operations Center
Science and Engineering Division
May 1999 Featured Platform
The
Science and Engineering Division (SED) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's (NOAA) Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) is the premier
airborne sciences instrument laboratory of NOAA. It is the focal point
for the development and operation of equipment and instrumentation for
the agency's aircraft science programs. The personnel of SED are dedicated
scientists, meteorologists, engineers and technicians. The team of professionals
develops, builds and operates prototype and operational scientific instrumentation
that is flown on NOAA aircraft through hurricanes, storms, and other weather
phenomena to gather data for the scientific community.
SED
installed, tested, and integrated the tail Doppler radar antenna, the first
airborne Meteorological Doppler radar ever flown, on NOAA's WP-3D Orion
"Hurricane Hunter" aircraft. SED has created their own airborne data collection
systems, developed many advances in the field of particle measurement and
was instrumental in the success of many advances in atmospheric research.
The group functions as an integrated unit that performs its own design,
repairs, installations, calibration, and fabrication of research instrumentation
equipment. Its personnel also serve as the scientific aircrew during weather
research flights into some of the most severe weather conditions found
in the world.
As
part of AOC's continuing effort to improve the quality of aircraft measurements,
periodic in-flight dynamic calibrations of the aircrafts' flight level
sensors are performed. Aircraft instrument calibrations are accomplished
by the SED Calibration Laboratory using an aerostat balloon operated by
the United States Air Force at its Aerostat Site at Horseshoe Beach, FL.
AOC's dynamic aircraft calibration requires suspending an instrument package,
capable of accurately measuring wind speed, wind direction, temperature,
dewpoint, and pressure, approximately 150 feet below the aerostat.
SED
designed and built the package to accurately measure and record meteorological
parameters while providing a real-time, full duplex telemetry link with
the aerostat site base station. Measurements are taken as the aircraft,
flying a racetrack pattern, pass within 400 to 600 feet of the aerostat.
Passes are made at indicated airspeeds of 180, 210 and 240 knots at altitudes
typically flown during research projects (1000, 5000, 10,000, and 15,000
ft). Data from the package are processed and compared to aircraft data,
and a dynamic correction is determined.
The
calibration project has grown to incorporate aircraft from the 53rd Air Force
Reserve Hurricane Reconnaissance Squadron. Both NOAA and the U.S. Air Force
rely on flight level instrumentation to perform vital roles in accurately tracking
movement and development of severe tropical weather such as hurricanes. Calibration/inter-comparison
flights such as these play an important function in ensuring the accuracy of
flight level measurements taken by aircraft from both organizations.
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