Page 6 - Volume 11 Number 8

Cmdrs. Mark Sweeney (left) and Ryan Kidder, both NOAA Corps officers, with NOAA’s Beechcraft King Air 350CER (N68RF) in May 2015. (PHOTO: DAVID HALL / NOAA)
Three aircraft in the fleet are called hurricane hunters: two Lockheed WP-3D Orion four-engine turboprop aircraft fly directly into the storms while a Gulfstream IV-SP jet flies missions above and around the storms. All three are equipped with tail Doppler radar and the ability to deploy weather data-gathering probes in flight, and their mission is to forecast the hurricane with precision accuracy while gathering data that can help scientists better understand storm processes in order to improve forecast models. Outside of the hurricane
Pilots Lt. Cmdr. Nicole Cabana (left) and Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Waddington, also NOAA Corps officers, with NOAA’s King Air. (PHOTO: DAVID HALL / NOAA)
hunting, these aircraft also conduct atmospheric and air chemistry studies missions.
The NOAA’s light aircraft also help monitor the environment and they operate nationwide. The Beechcraft King Air 350CER twin-turboprop is used primarily for coastal mapping and emergency response. A Gulfstream Turbo Commander AC-695A high-wing, twin-engine turboprop spends most of its time collecting data used to forecast river levels, water flow and potential flooding events when the snow melts. Four de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter turboprops support airborne marine mammal, hydrological, remote sensing, air chemistry and emergency response programs. NOAA also operates unmanned aircraft systems to observe marine life, seabirds and their habitat.
A team of 110 civilians and officers of the NOAA Corps oversee these aerial assets. One of those officers is Commander Mark Sweeney, deputy director of the National Geodetic Survey’s Remote Sensing Division within NOAA.
Sweeney went to Cornell University on a Navy ROTC scholarship, then was commissioned in the Navy and went to flight school in Pensacola, Florida, and Corpus Christi, Texas. He served as a Navy pilot for 10 years, with his last duty station at the Naval Research Laboratory, where he trained some of NOAA’s P-3 pilots and learned about the organization’s mission.
In 2006, he made an inter-service transfer to NOAA and began flying the P-3 hurricane hunters and the Twin
NOAA Corps pilot Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Waddington at the controls of NOAA’s King Air 350CER aircraft wearing a flight suit patch with the King Air’s motto, “King of the
Road.” (PHOTO: DAVID HALL / NOAA)
4 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
AUGUST 2017