NASA06: 20060210a

Flight notes-Jeff French, 4^rd seat

Pilot: Kevin Fagerstrom

Right Seat: Bart Geerts

Third Seat: Jonathon Wolfe

Fourth Seat: Jeff French

Pre-flight:

Instruments:

• This is the last flight of NASA06, before flight all aerosol gear was removed, the second (new) FSSP was mounted

Weather conditions:

• Winds out of the Northwest, shallow clouds over the Snowy Range and Laramie Range, extend up to ~13 kft, clouds look somewhat convective in nature, but capped by strong inversion??

Flight:

• ~1915 wheels up

• 1921 open Nadir port

• 1932 @ 13 kft towards west end of valley to do NW-SE pass over Glees at 14 kft…we appear to be ~1500 to 2000 ft above cloud top with only a few ‘turrets’ (I use this term loosely) extending to our altitude

• 1937 wind: 331 deg @ 27-30 kts

• 1938 clip cloud top

• 194330 on south end of Snowy Range clipping tops, all probes show some liquid water, lwcs up to ~0.2 g/m3, also shows up in both FSSPs

• 1947 turn east, proceed to Laramie Range, descend to 11 kft

• 1956 checked Cheyenne radar, strongest echoes extend to north and east of Cheyenne, some also along the Laramie range, north and west of Cheyenne, no apparent banded structure as was seen on NWS radar pre-flight

• 1958-2007 NW to SE track along Laramie Range, ‘spotty clouds’ with liquid water up to 0.2 g m3, FSSP spectra in good agreement re: size, all d’s < 20 um, new FSSP has 2x concentration of old FSSP

• 200930 complete turn at SE end of leg, set up for SE-NW leg

• 2030 end of 2^nd leg, begin 3^rd NW to SE

• 2033 over ridge on NW end, liquid water up to 0.35 g/m3, all small drops

• 2042 south end of leg turn for next leg

• 2057 end of leg, set up to go south, will proceed ~1/2 of leg then turn to Wolfe’s hotplate site

• 210930 over Wolfe’s site, severe clear, east of precip/clouds over Laramie Range, west of precip lying north and east of Cheyenne

• 2115 set up for cross wind leg over Laramie Range

• 2127 preparation for landing, we shutdown WASP, closed Nadir port, pull DMT breakers just before landing

Post flight:

• All instruments looked good in flight. New FSSP concs 2X concs from old FSSP, PVM LWCs twice as large as DMT