[All] To the folks back home

[Jordan, Dave E. (ARC-SGG)]

Hello again ESPO, from Boise.

I wrote a week ago and at that time the DC-8 was in Palmdale, and had scrubbed a test flight on July 18. Instrumenters used Friday and Saturday to work instrument issues on the ground. Sunday was a down day. Monday morning at about 1100 the DC-8 took off on transit to Boise. It flew over dairies and other targets in California for most of the flight time. A lot of that flight time was low altitude, and it was hot, so we hear the flyers and instruments suffered somewhat from the heat. Effort was made to inform the FBI and press of the low flying aircraft, but several articles indicate it was somewhat of a surprise anyway. See the links on the ESPO FIREX page.

Alex, Dan, and I had arranged and re-arranged the Ops Center in the hangar (several rooms), prepped for Media Day, purchased supplies, and met with many of the Air National Guard staff who are supporting us. Tony, Drew and Quincy loaded trucks in Palmdale then traveled here to receive/unload the equipment. There was more to ship than would  fit in one 53’ semi so Quincy rented a U-Haul truck for the overflow and drove it from Palmdale to Boise.  Kudos to Quincy for his willingness to do that.

Media Day occurred the day after the DC-8 arrived; Tuesday, July 23rd.  That was the same day that the truck from AFRC that was full of science equipment arrived.  We began to unload the truck and were putting the cargo in the hangar but had to stop doing that when the Media Day presentations began because they were taking place in the hangar.  At that point we closed the hangar door and continued to unload the truck, putting the cargo in the parking lot just outside the door.  Then, as things will go, it began to rain so we had to interrupt Media Day to get things out of the rain.  Luckily the rain didn’t last long so when it stopped we closed the door and went back to unloading and putting the cargo in the parking lot.  When the Media Day presentations were done we continued putting the cargo in the hangar.  The Media that attended heard presentations from NASA, NOAA and Forest Service personnel.  Then they split into groups and were given tours of the aircraft.  The NOAA Meteorology Twin Otter was brought over from Jackson Jet Center so they had a look at that aircraft too.  The science team had aircraft access concurrent with the tours.  The forecast team went to work and the DC-8 flew the first FIREX-AQ science flight the next day, July 24th. They investigated two fires in Idaho; the Sheep Fire and the Shady Fire.

The second science flight occurred on the next day, July 25th, exercising the back-to-back flight option. Takeoff times are afternoon: 3pm and 4 pm for these two flights. Last night the DC-8 returned a little after 10 pm. They can only fly the fire during daylight hours, but they can transit back and land in the dark. Yesterday’s flight was over the Shady Fire, here in Idaho. At the start of the flight, the forecasters believed it would die out but it grew stronger and they flew until dark. Since they were able to sample throughout the life of the fire the science team was quite excited.

Quincy departed on Wednesday.  Tony and Drew departed on Thursday and Dan left yesterday. We were experiencing some network problems before Dan’s departure but it seems as though they’ve been fixed.  Alex extended her stay because I wanted to have some IT expertise here in case the problems re-occurred.  I’m sure all of you know that IT isn’t my strong suit.  Having Alex here for a couple more days will give me piece of mind that the network issues have truly been resolved.  Alex is scheduled to leave on Monday.  Then it will be me and Bernie until the 5th at which time Quincy will return and Vidal will get his Boise indoctrination.

Overall things are beginning to settle down though one of the two a/c air conditioning units that AFRC shipped here developed some problems and will be replaced with another one that is being shipped from AFRC.  It will arrive on Tuesday as Monday is an Air National Guard down day.  I guess they have RDOs too though they’re not a frequent as those at AFRC.  One other difference between here and AFRC is that the foreign nationals do not require an escort here.  The plane was going to fly today but they had a couple of instrument teams that convinced the science leadership that it would be better to have another day to look at the data they have collected so far and do some instrument work so the current plan now is to fly on Monday.

dj


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