DRYDEN AIRCRAFT PART OF NOAA HURRICANE STUDY.Byline: Daily News EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. - A high-flying NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. ER-2 earth sciences aircraft from the Dryden Flight Research Center The Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC), located inside Edwards Air Force Base, is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. On March 26, 1976 it was named in honor of the late Hugh L. flew over Hurricane Emily The name Emily has been used for five tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, and five tropical cyclones in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. It was used in the Eastern Pacific before the formal naming system was instituted, and then it was used on the old four-year lists. as it moved across the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of Mexico Noun 1. Gulf of Mexico - an arm of the Atlantic to the south of the United States and to the east of Mexico Golfo de Mexico Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east . The aircraft collected data during an eight-hour flight last month over Hurricane Emily, making two passes at 65,000 feet over the storm's eye. Earlier in July, the NASA aircraft and two P-3 aircraft operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Noun 1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; provides weather reports and forecasts floods and hurricanes and had flown numerous missions over Hurricane Dennis. ``Hurricane Dennis was much kinder,'' said NASA pilot David Wright. ``Emily just didn't want me around.'' A team of atmospheric scientists, engineers and aircraft personnel took up residence in San Jose, Costa Rica, during July to study how tropical storms become hurricanes. The NASA team worked with NOAA NOAA abbr. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Noun 1. NOAA - an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; and Costa Rican Centro Nacional de Alta Tecnologia in a mission called Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes. The ground-based and airborne studies measured the buildup and behavior of tropical storm systems on Costa Rica's east and west coasts. The airborne experiments collected temperature, humidity, precipitation and wind information related to tropical cyclones and other phenomena that often lead to development of more powerful storms at sea. The field operations also took advantage of several NASA and NOAA satellites. The eye-wall clouds powering Emily were extremely energetic and deep. Instruments carried by the ER-2 detected large amounts of lightning and thunderclouds rising to approximately 60,000 feet. ``Instruments onboard the ER-2 recorded unprecedented detail of the hurricane vertical structure and precipitation levels,'' said Jeff Halverson, deputy project manager from the NASA Goddard Space Center, Greenbelt, Md. ``This was a very successful and interesting flight for the ER-2.'' In addition to NASA Dryden, four other NASA centers and 10 American universities are partnering in the study. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: A NASA ER-2 aircraft takes off from a Costa Rica airport in July as part of the 28-day Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes mission, conducted jointly with the NOAA and Costa Rica. NASA/Bill Ingalls |
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