RSP flight notes for ORACLES PRF12Y17 August 31, 2017, Sao Tome RSP operator: Kirk Knobelspiesse Flight plan: Lagrangian flight observe predicted locations of airmasses sampled in – yesterday’s routine flight. Note HSRL inoperative for entire flight all local/GMT Preflight Checklist 1 RSP optics over from outside closed 2 LN filled by Andrzej 3 purge at 1550, flow at 11 4 RSP operating with Temp Er 8.4K, voltages and other temp nominal Flight notes 07:40 system powered off in anticipation of transfer 07:50 power transfer 07:59 takeoff 08:05 door open. Climbing. Patchy cirrus present 08:22 cruising at 16kft. 4STAR still sees cirrus behind. Clouds clearing out below. 08:37 changed track ~ 5min ago, now very close to PP. Cirrus had cleared out above. This is a good data analysis leg. Can see supernumerary bows in plots, APR sees little return, suggesting small cloud droplet size, narrow distribution. Lots of polarimetric side scattering indicates heavy aerosol load below. Temp is slowly trending downward, at 11 right now. 08:37 still on track. Clearing out a bit below. Ocean scenes show less polarization at shortest wavelengths, indication of absorbing aerosols in blue. Still a good leg although we may hit cirrus soon. 09:01 perhaps getting cirrus for 5min. Still oscillating between ocean and cloudy. Apparently lots of aerosols. Visually it looks like two layers. 09:02 4star says out of cirrus. Good leg maybe 09:09 4STAR sees cirrus. 09:25 Starting spiral down 09:35 Door closed to avoid clouds 09:55 Open door above clouds. Still continuing on square spiral, now up. 10:10 Starting run to SW above cloud deck. Clouds are becoming more persistent. Temp err ~5 10:21 no indication of cirrus 10:26 interesting changes in cloud below according to APR. Michal wants to revisit this point in the data
RSP flight notes for ORACLES PRF12Y17 August 31, 2017, Sao Tome RSP operator: Kirk Knobelspiesse Flight plan: Lagrangian flight – observe predicted locations of airmasses sampled in yesterday’s routine flight. Note HSRL inoperative for entire flight all local/GMT Preflight Checklist 1 RSP optics over from outside closed 2 LN filled by Andrzej 3 purge at 1550, flow at 11 4 RSP operating with Temp Er 8.4K, voltages and other temp nominal Flight notes 07:40 system powered off in anticipation of transfer 07:50 power transfer 07:59 takeoff 08:05 door open. Climbing. Patchy cirrus present 08:22 cruising at 16kft. 4STAR still sees cirrus behind. Clouds clearing out below. 08:37 changed track ~ 5min ago, now very close to PP. Cirrus had cleared out above. This is a good data analysis leg. Can see supernumerary bows in plots, APR sees little return, suggesting small cloud droplet size, narrow distribution. Lots of polarimetric side scattering indicates heavy aerosol load below. Temp is slowly trending downward, at 11 right now. 08:37 still on track. Clearing out a bit below. Ocean scenes show less polarization at shortest wavelengths, indication of absorbing aerosols in blue. Still a good leg although we may hit cirrus soon. 09:01 perhaps getting cirrus for 5min. Still oscillating between ocean and cloudy. Apparently lots of aerosols. Visually it looks like two layers. 09:02 4star says out of cirrus. Good leg maybe 09:09 4STAR sees cirrus. 09:25 Starting spiral down 09:35 Door closed to avoid clouds 09:55 Open door above clouds. Still continuing on square spiral, now up. 10:10 Starting run to SW above cloud deck. Clouds are becoming more persistent. Temp err ~5 10:21 no indication of cirrus 10:26 interesting changes in cloud below according to APR. Michal wants to revisit this point in the data
20170831_ORACLESPRF12Y17_flightnotes.docx