ER-2 Flight: 99059

Date: April 1, 1999

Mission: Calibration of Interferometers on ER-2 at CART site. Moisture advection (dry line).  Cirrus detection.

Mission Objectives

Overfly Boundary CART site at Vici, OK in racetrack pattern to compare to uplooking AERI and microwave radiometer instruments.  Traverse low level dry line (oriented N-S) near TX/OK border.  Test cloud detection with MAS for low light scenes of single layer cirrus moving into OK.

Flight Summary

Take-off was at 2130 UTC. ER-2 landed  at 0200 UTC.

ER-2 spiraled up from Truax and flew to western Oklahoma to get on to SE point of racetrack (oriented 230 deg).  Arrived at racetrack about 2310 UTC.  Racetrack line 1 (36:33n 98:27w  to 35:37n 99:47w) is centered on Vici AERI site.  2nd line offset 30km (16.3nm) to NE.  Did two orbits of racetrack.  First overpass of Vici at 2315 UTC, 2nd overpass 33 minutes later (about 2350UTC).  On both racetracks the skies were filled with cirrus of varying thickness and coverage.  Looks like there may have been some breaks in the clouds that may be clear for atmospheric sounding.  After 2nd orbit, ER-2 flew back to MSN.  NO overpass of SSEC.  HSRL not operating.  AERI on roof at SSEC was operative. CLASSonde launched at 00UTC (good flight).

Highlights

Variable thickness cirrus with some breaks.

Instrument Status

Additional Pilot Notes: high cloud over OKLA had bumpy cumuliform texture.  Bumpy flight in general.