Aerosonde Flight Summary for 07/17/2005
Sortie Number: 050717-07
Take off: 2105
Landing: 1336
Flight Description:
For the first overnight flight, AC129 was launched at 21:05UTC and directed to the wait box. Control was passed to the local command center under Iridium, and the aircraft was directed to the first leg of the flight pattern The total distance of the flight plan was 1200km and soundings were made along track from 500ft to 8500ft every 75km. The pattern was flown counterclockwise, beginning at the corner closest to shore. Flight altitude between soundings was maintained at 500ft. It was hoped that the sounding height would sufficient to identify the altitude at which low level jets form during the passage of tropical waves. Because of the length of the flight, control of the aircraft was handed to a crew in Australia between 02:00UTC and 10:00UTC in order to allow the Costa Rica crew to rest. During the latter half of this period, heavy convective weather was encountered. At the time of the handoff of control back to the Costa Rica crew, the aircraft was being tossed about by very heavy turbulence and rain airspeed fluctuations from 14ms-1 to 40ms-1 were experience within a period of a few seconds. Fortunately the aircraft was able to descend out of the worst of the weather without issue. Control was handed to the Costa Rica crew and the rest of the flight was fairly calm. Upon completion of the flight plan, the aircraft was directed to the wait box. While heading back to the wait box, the aircraft began to experience intermittent GPS failures. Control was quickly handed over to the ground command center and the aircraft was safely landed with out incident at 13:36UTC, July 18. Total flight time was 16hr 21min with 8 soundings completed during the flight.
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