Posted on 09/13/2006 11:17:02 AM PDT by blam
Tiny uncrewed aircraft to fly into hurricanes
20:05 12 September 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Jeff Hecht
The tiny aircraft weigh just 15 kilograms (33 pounds) or so and can be launched from atop a truck
(Image: Aerosonde/NOAA)Related Articles Each aerosonde costs about $50,000 and can be reused, unless it drops into the sea (Image: Aerosonde/NOAA) A small uncrewed aircraft is set to fly through the fierce winds surrounding the eye of a hurricane to take the first continuous data on how such storms gain their strength, according to a plan by NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
The craft, called an aerosonde, will measure the temperature, pressure, humidity and wind velocity inside the storm in an effort to crack the tough problem of predicting changes in hurricane intensity.
It will make the measurements when the hurricane is over the sea, where it builds in intensity. A hurricane is a giant heat engine, powered by the evaporation of warm seawater that then condenses inside the storm, releasing energy.
Unfortunately, understanding that process requires flying instruments a few hundred metres above the ocean, where wind speeds are highest. "It's far too dangerous to get there with manned aircraft," says Joe Cione of NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, US.
NOAA and NASA now monitor hurricanes from satellites, and crewed hurricane-hunter planes fly through the upper layers of the storm. To measure near-surface conditions, though, the agencies drop 20 to 30 instrument packages called dropsondes into the storms.
Eye of the storm
Each $700 dropsonde takes measurements as it falls through the storm into the sea.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientistspace.com ...
Ping.
Kewl.
Ping.
It was not reported but the reason that these aircraft are "uncrewed" is the lack of volunteer Ommpah Loompahs!
Cool idea.
If the hurricane wants to avoid our bothersome nosing around, it should park itself in a cemetary.
"Uncrewed"? I'm sorry, but I'm still going to say, "unmanned."
Can't they at least put Harry Reid on it?
LOL. I actually had to look twice to make sure it didn't say unscrewed.
These aircraft used to be called "unmanned", but I guess that's too politically incorrect. For a while it was "uninhabited", and now "uncrewed".
38 years in Meteorology, retired 5 years ago (see Greenland in my profile). A project like this one makes me wish I were still working.
The one thing I loved doing was flying balloons and getting upper air profiles for U.S. Army and Air Force R&D.
Better than sending million dollar Hercules with brave USAF personnel into the eye of the storm.
Betcha that Bush and Cheney's hurricane making machine (which must be on the fritz, by the way, as they can't seem to hit a continent with one this year) will be able to make hurricanes that can thwart these tiny unpeopled vehicles. </sarc>
It's also undetectable, even from the NoI Mothership.
Uncrewed. Unpersoned. Not peopled. Bodyfree. Humanless. Pilot deprived. Crewbare.
Yeah ... unmanned is still best.
Thought it said "unscrewed." Like maybe the nose end would come off and there would be a camera inside.
Flying into a hurricane is not the challenge ... flying out will be the neat trick! In one piece would be even better.
Awesome! I bet it will be possible to get live streaming reports from this.
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