NASA Tops Off Earl Research With Historic Global Hawk Flight | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-11.04.24

Airborne-NextGen-11.05.24

Airborne-Unlimited-11.06.24

Airborne-FlightTraining-11.07.24

Airborne-Unlimited-11.08.24

Sat, Sep 04, 2010

NASA Tops Off Earl Research With Historic Global Hawk Flight

First Flight For A UAV Over A Fully Formed Hurricane

NASA completed a historic day for its hurricane research on Thursday as it put the Global Hawk over Earl, marking the first time the unmanned drone flew over a fully formed hurricane.


NASA Global Hawk UAV File Photo

The Global Hawk also flew in concert with NASA’s DC-8 during the DC-8’s fourth and final research flight to Earl. Both planes are outfitted with a suite of highly advanced instruments that scientists hope will bring new insight into how hurricanes form and intensify.

Thursday marked the first day of the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment when two NASA aircraft involved were flying and studying a storm at the same time. The experiment was designed to take advantage of having multiple aircraft above a storm at once, in order to observe hurricanes and tropical storms in as many facets as possible.

As Earl changed over the course of the week, the hurricane turned into an almost ideal test bed for GRIP. The DC-8 flew to Earl four times, including twice from St. Croix in order to reach it when it was farther east. GRIP scientists designed the mission in order to capture a hurricane either as it was forming or as it was strengthening or fizzling. And the Earl flights delivered, allowing scientists to observe the storm rapidly intensifying earlier in the week and then collapsing to a degree later in the week.


Hurricane Earl's Eye As Seen From NASA DC8 NASA Image

A Sunday flight from St. Croix put the DC-8 over Earl as it intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 2. And Monday’s flight from Ft. Lauderdale allowed the DC-8’s instruments to observe what was happening as Earl went from a Category 3 to a Category 4. One of GRIP’s key goals is to help scientists understand why and how some hurricanes rapidly intensify. These flights collected important data toward that end, scientists said.

“That series of flights alone really helped us achieve a great goal, which is to observe rapid intensification,” said GRIP mission scientist Scott Braun from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.

Earl had surprised scientists earlier in the week when they saw that it was surrounded by dry air. Hurricanes often derive strength from moist air and weaken when dry air infiltrates the cyclone. “What happened?” said GRIP mission scientist Ed Zipser of the University of Utah. “The storm continued to intensify in spite of that. And we need to know why.”

Then during Thursday’s flight, as Earl spun toward North Carolina but also lost strength, GRIP scientists made measurements from the storm as its eye wall collapsed and as it dropped from a Category 3 to a Category 2 hurricane. At first blush, it appeared that wind shear played a role in breaking up the storm. “It doesn’t matter if it did what we thought it was going to,” Zipser said. “It matters that it did something interesting and that we were there to observe it.”


Tracking Hurricane Earl With Global Hawk NASA Image

Now that the Global Hawk has successfully flown over an Atlantic hurricane all the way from its base in southern California, the GRIP team is hoping for more opportunities to put the groundbreaking aircraft in the field. Because of the drone’s 30-hour flight range, it can remain directly over a storm to make high-quality measurements far longer than a manned plane or a satellite.

The GRIP mission will continue to fly until September 25th. So scientists are hoping for more research opportunities like Earl provided this week. “Yesterday’s flight was a historic flight because we were able to put the Global Hawk over a hurricane for the first time,” said Ramesh Kakar, GRIP program manager from NASA Headquarters, Washington. “Earl has allowed us to fulfill a lot of our objectives, but, we have almost a month to go.”

FMI: www.nasa.gov/hurricanes

Advertisement

More News

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (11.05.24): Circle-To-Land Maneuver

Circle-To-Land Maneuver A maneuver initiated by the pilot to align the aircraft with a runway for landing when a straight-in landing from an instrument approach is not possible or >[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (11.05.24)

"We are thrilled to see such remarkable interest in the Skyryse One First Edition. Our goal is to open up access to aviation by making it safer and simpler to pilot any aircraft. T>[...]

Airborne 11.01.24: XB-1 Flies Again, Evektor Fleet Sale, Zepp Record Remembered

Also: Senator Pushes FAA, Gulfstream Goes Starlink, Crew-8 Astro Out of Hospital, PC-12 Flight Hours Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 demonstrator aircraft successfully carried out Fli>[...]

Airborne 11.04.24: World Drone Races, Manta Aircraft, Stratus Power Max

Also: Large Formation Skydiving, USCG Medevac, ARTCC Meteorologists, SpaceX 2024 100th The 2024 Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Drone Racing>[...]

Airborne-NextGen 11.05.24: China v Skydio, SpaceX 100th, World Drone Champs

Also: ERAU Hurricane Drone Program, lightWave Edge 130 Blue, Manta Aircraft, ARTCC Meteorologists Prominent American drone manufacturer Skydio was recently hit with sanctions from >[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2024 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC