Page 11 - Volume 12 Number 1

to implement electrical and structural modifications to the aircraft to support scientific missions.”
N2UW has supported a wide range of atmospheric missions across the continental U.S., in Hawaii and Alaska, as well as internationally in Japan, Saudi Arabia, U.K., Finland, Martinique and Dominica. The largest body of work is the study of clouds, which involves flights in and around clouds of different types ranging from wintertime stratus to summertime thunderstorms. UW also regularly conducts low-level probing of the atmosphere near the earth’s surface in measuring fluxes of moisture, heat and momentum exchanges between the surface and the atmosphere.
Other project types include studying the dynamics of how clouds form using a sophisticated system to measure winds, and monitoring the atmospheric effects of wildfires. There also have been endeavors related to aviation, from studying the meteorology and turbulence around the approaches to Juneau, Alaska, to microburst and wind studies in Colorado and conducting research on the microphysics of aircraft icing in various types of clouds.
“One very important activity is exposing students to this facility, encouraging the next generation of airborne scientists,” Rodi said. “We have done several education- only deployments.
When asked for an example of how the King Air 200T performs in research situations, Brett Wadsworth, UW’s chief research pilot shares this anecdote:
“We were flying over the Snowy Range Mountains in southeast Wyoming at the minimum IFR altitude during a snowstorm. We had been airborne for about three hours flying a holding pattern while collecting data. Obviously, during the flight we had burned over 2,000 pounds of fuel and the throttle had slowly been adjusted back to maintain research airspeed of 160 KIAS. We had encountered relatively light to moderate ice during the flight, but the de-ice boots were cleanly shedding with activation and the growth of ice on unprotected surfaces was reasonable and expected. On the next-to-last lap of the pattern, we encountered a new pocket of super-cooled moisture that had moved into the area. The plane shuddered slightly as we hit the pocket. The windshield iced over somewhat, and the wing boots had to be activated as over one- half inch of ice had developed. Aircraft performance remained normal with no power changes required. We decided to make one more lap. When we encountered the pocket of moisture again, the conditions had grown more significant. The aircraft shuddered again, the windshield iced over, and airspeed instantly started to decrease. After pushing up the props to 2,000 RPM and the throttles to max, the airspeed decreased and
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JANUARY 2018 KING AIR MAGAZINE • 9