The P3 is fueling up and getting ready to fly into Hurricane Maria. We continue to test the unmanned aerial system called the Coyote as well as the Doppler Wind Lidar instrument. These instruments are in the testing phase and could provide us with new measurements inside the hurricane. The P3 will take off at 1 PM ET (1700 UTC) from Lakeland, FL. Below is the proposed flight track. The dots on the flight track below (shown in green) represent the P3 aircraft turn points. The red dots in the figure show the locations that launch weather balloons twice a day while the purple dots are the locations that launch balloons once a day.
Here’s a zoomed in look at the flight track.
