Peter Bale (AAI/Aerosonde Corporation)
Power Point presentation on
HRD's project
Aerosonde Corp.
Aerosonde first hurricane flight
First hurricane flight story
NASA's Wallops Flight Facility
Objective:
The primary objective of this project is to demonstrate the Aerosonde
platform's overall capabilities (including survivability) in a hurricane
environment.
The key scientific objectives are :
- Test remote communication capability from NASA's King Air manned aircraft.
- Undertake research aimed at improve understanding of the high-wind boundary
layer and the exchanges of heat, moisture, and momentum across the oceanic
surface.
- Fully explore Aerosonde's potential to effectively observe critical regions
of the tropical cyclone boundary layer environment.
- Conduct low level missions into the eyewall region of hurricanes at
altitudes of 300m or lower.
- Conduct several low level flights into several tropical cyclones including
multiple aircraft missions.
- Continue to transmit real-time surface wind, pressure, and thermodynamic
data to NOAA/TPC in direct support of operational requirements.
- Provide calibration and verification data sets for NASA.
- As a direct result of improved understanding of the hurricane boundary
layer and air-sea environment, look for potential opportunities to contribute
towards future operational model development.
Method:
Conduct a Hurricane Aerosonde Demonstration Project in Key West
The demonstration project is scheduled to run for approximately 10
weeks, from Aug. 27th to Oct. 31, 2007, in cooperation with Aerosonde Corp.,
NASA, and the U.S. Navy. The Aerosondes will be deployed at Key West Naval
Air Station (NASKW), and will have an approximate 1200 nautical mile
(round-trip) operational range. A second deployment location will be NASA's
Wallops Flight Facility in southeast Virginia.
In addition, Aerosonde experiments will be coordinated with NOAA and AFRES
manned aircraft missions during the 2007 demo. The following experiments
are possible:
- Inflow Experiment - Sample the tropical cyclone inflow
layer's thermodynamic structure by flying within 600 feet of the
surface in the inner core, spiraling in on the winds of the storm.
The continuous observations of very low level winds may result in
establishing the location and magnitude of storm's maximum wind speed.
- Tropical Cyclone Thermodynamic Asymmetry Experiment - The
Aerosonde would fly a fixed radius orbit (~200 km from the center) either
prior to or after its spiral in toward the center in order to improve the
radial accuracy of the 34kt, 50kt, and 64kt wind estimates.
- Eye Sounding and Loitering Experiment - The Aerosonde would make
a corkscrew sounding within the eye up to 10,000 feet, to find any early
detection signal of rapid intensity changes. This would require a clear,
discernible eye when there are no AFRES flights in progress and with close
coordination with any NOAA flights at the time of the sounding.
Background:
While the successful utilization of the P-3 Orion and Gulfstream 4
aircraft have made NOAA a global leader in the area of hurricane
aircraft surveillance and reconnaissance, detailed observations of
the near-surface tropical cyclone (TC) boundary layer environment
have been elusive due to the severe safety risks associated with low
level TC manned flight missions. The primary objective of this funded
project is to address this significant observational shortcoming by
utilizing the unique low flying attributes of the (unmanned) Aerosonde
observing platform.
It is believed that the payoff for such an effort would be significant
and in some cases immediate. These benefits would include detailed
documentation of a theretofore unknown region of the TC and simultaneously
provide NOAA's Tropical Prediction Center (TPC) with real-time near surface
wind and thermodynamic data within the TC environment. In addition, this
effort will enhance our physical understanding of this critically important
environment and ultimately, provide improvements to future forecasts of
TC intensity change.
Continuous observation of the high-wind hurricane boundary layer
has never been fully documented. This environment, where the atmosphere meets
the sea, is critically important since it is where the ocean's warm water
energy is directly transferred to the atmosphere just above it. The TC
surface layer is also important because it is where we find the strongest
winds in a hurricane and coincidentally, the level at which most of us live
(i.e. at/near the surface). As such, observing and ultimately better
understanding this region of the storm is crucial if we hope to
improve our ability to make accurate forecasts of TC intensity change.
Enhancing this predictive capability would not only save our economy
billions of dollars but more importantly it would save countless lives.
Key references:
- Cione, J.J., and E. W. Uhlhorn 2003: Sea surface temperature
variability in hurricanes: Implications with respect to intensity
change. Mon. Wea. Rev., v.131, pp.1783-1796
- Wroe, D.R. and G.M. Barnes 2003: Inflow Layer Energetics of
Hurricane Bonnie (1998) near Landfall. Mon. Wea. Rev.
v.131 pp. 1600-1612
- Cione, J.J., P. J. Black and S. Houston 2000: Surface observations
in the hurricane environment. Mon. Wea. Rev, v.128 pp.1550-1561
- Dunion, J.P., and C.S. Velden, 2004: The impact of the Saharan Air
Layer on Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. Bull. Amer. Meteor.
Soc., v.85 no. 3, pp.353-365
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Last modified: 7/25/2006