HU-25C Guardian 09/30/15

Aircraft:

HU-25A Guardian - LaRC #525 (See full schedule)

Flight Number:

OIB2015 Arctic Zachariae-79N

Payload Configuration:

ATM & DMS

Nav Data Collected:

No

Total Flight Time:

3.9 hours

Submitted by:

Luci Crittenden on 09/30/15

Flight Segments:

From:	BGTL	To:	BGTL
Start:	09/30/15 16:43 Z	Finish:	09/30/15 20:36 Z
Flight Time:	3.9 hours
Log Number:	15F005	PI:	John Woods
Funding Source:	Thomas Wagner - NASA - SMD - ESD Cryospheric Science
Purpose of Flight:	Science
Comments:	OIB completed the Zacharia-79N mission out of Thule today, thus completing 2 data flights today. Weather permitting, we will try for another data flight tomorrow, Thursday 1 Oct.

Flight Hour Summary:

	15F005	16F002
Flight Hours Approved in SOFRS	100
Flight Hours Previously Approved		67.4
Total Used	32.6	65.3
Total Remaining		2.1

16F002 Flight Reports
Date	Flt #	Purpose of Flight	Duration	Running Total	Hours Remaining	Miles Flown
10/05/15	OIB2015 Arctic Sea Ice Central	Science	3.6	3.6	63.8
10/05/15	OIB2015 Arctic Sea Ice East	Science	3.8	7.4	60
10/06/15	OIB2015 Arctic Ice-Sat2 North	Science	4	11.4	56
10/07/15	OIB2015 Arctic Transit Thule to Kangerlussuaq	Transit	2	13.4	54
10/08/15	OIB2015 Arctic Southwest Coastal A	Science	3.8	17.2	50.2
10/08/15	OIB2015 Arctic Thomas-Jakobshavn 01	Science	3.7	20.9	46.5
10/09/15	OIB2015 Arctic Umanaq B	Science	3.9	24.8	42.6
10/13/15	OIB2015 Arctic Jakobshavn Eqip Store	Science	2.9	27.7	39.7
10/13/15	OIB2015 Arctic Southeast Coastal A	Science	3.6	31.3	36.1
10/18/15	OIB2015 Arctic Southeast Coastal B	Science	4.1	35.4	32
10/19/15	OIB2015 Arctic Helheim-Kangerdlugussuaq	Science	3.7	39.1	28.3
10/19/15	OIB2015 Arctic Helheim-Kangerdlugussuaq Gap B	Science	3.9	43	24.4
10/20/15	OIB2015 Arctic Jakobshavn Mop-Up	Science	3.7	46.7	20.7
10/20/15	OIB2015 Arctic Southwest Coastal B	Science	3.7	50.4	17
10/21/15	OIB2015 Arctic Southwest Coastal C	Science	3.4	53.8	13.6
10/21/15	OIB2015 Arctic K-EGIG-Summit	Science	3.7	57.5	9.9
10/22/15	OIB2015 Arctic Mopup South	Science	2	59.5	7.9
10/22/15	OIB2015 Arctic Ferry BGSF-CYYR	Ferry	2.2	61.7	5.7
10/23/15	OIB2015 Arctic Ferry CYYR-KRIC	Ferry	3.3	65	2.4
10/23/15	OIB2015 Arctic Ferry CYYR-KRIC	Ferry	0.3	65.3	2.1

15F005 Flight Reports
Date	Flt #	Purpose of Flight	Duration	Running Total	Hours Remaining	Miles Flown
09/15/15	OIB #1	Check	2.7	2.7	97.3
09/20/15	OIB #2, 3, 4	Ferry	2.7	5.4	94.6
09/21/15	OIB #2, 3, 4	Ferry	2.3	7.7	92.3
09/21/15	OIB #2, 3, 4	Ferry	2	9.7	90.3
09/23/15	OIB2015 Arctic North Central Gap 02	Science	3.9	13.6	86.4
09/24/15	OIB2015 Arctic Northwest Coastal A	Science	3.7	17.3	82.7
09/25/15	OIB2015 Arctic Northwest Coastal B	Science	3.8	21.1	78.9
09/28/15	OIB2015 Arctic Sea Ice West	Science	3.7	24.8	75.2
09/30/15	OIB2015 Arctic North Central Gap 01	Science	3.9	28.7	71.3
09/30/15	OIB2015 Arctic Zachariae-79N	Science	3.9	32.6	67.4

Flight Reports began being entered into this system as of 2012 flights. If there were flights flown under an earlier log number the flight reports are not available online.

Related Science Report:

OIB - HU-25C Guardian 09/30/15 Science Report

Mission:

OIB

Mission Summary:

Mission: Falcon Zachariae-79N (priority: medium)

This mission reoccupies the centerlines of the Zacharaie and 79N glaciers. It is similar to the Zachariae-79N flight planned (but not flown) for Spring 2015, except that we removed the IceSat-1 grid over the lower portions of the glaciers. We transit to and from the northeast region along a historical ATM lines dating back to 1994, and along an as-yet unflown master grid line.

Weather today was quite poor again, with northwestern Greenland completely obscured by clouds associated with a low-pressure system which came ashore overnight from Baffin Bay. A more powerful low-pressure system is forecast to approach the area during the day today and overnight, and it is likely that this system will close the Thule airport for at least portions of the next two days. Thus today may be our last flight opportunity until Monday. Fortunately, strong offshore flow and clear skies prevailed over much of northeast Greenland, so we selected this medium-priority flight for this afternoon, after flying the high-priority flight in the same region this morning.

All instruments performed well today. The cloudiness across northwestern Greenland prevented our instruments from collecting more than isolated data between Thule and the main ridgeline of the ice sheet, but we successfully collected data for all of the eastern half of the flightline. We flew the outbound transit at 35,000' MSL, the glacier centerlines at 29,000' MSL, and the westbound transit at 35,000' MSL.

We conducted a ramp pass at 3000' MSL.

Data volumes:
DMS: 11.0 Gb
Narrow Swath ATM: 22 Gb
FLIR: 1.7 Gb

total data collection time: 3.7 hrs

Images: