¥Four storms flown during August and September (August
10-September 30): Katrina, Ophelia, Rita (P-3s and G-IV), and Irene
(SALEX)
¥27 P-3 missions flown, 24 G-IV missions flown in August
and September
¥~215 P-3
research flight hours, 47 G-IV research flight hours used for entire season
¥~550 HRD GPS
sondes dropped during entire season, AXBT, cloud physics data also
collected
¥Experiments
flown
¥ Tropical cyclogenesis
¥ Frequent-monitoring
¥ Landfall
¥ Post-landfall
¥ Extratropical transition
¥ Aerosonde
¥ SALEX
¥ Ocean response
¥All stages of
tropical cyclone lifecycle were flown, except decay over cold water
¥Technological
highlights
¥ successful implementation of real-time
Doppler radar processing
¥ successful upload of RAMSDIS imagery
onto aircraft
¥ successful transmission of LF imagery in
real time to ground