[Oppslist] Next-Generation Storm Penetrating Aircraft Workshop

[Susan Friberg]

FROM:
John Helsdon 
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

Dear Colleague,
As you are probably aware, the NSF/SD School of Mines & Technology T-28 
Storm Penetrating Aircraft was recently retired from service.  This 
retirement leaves a gap in our observational capabilities in many areas 
related to storm structure and evolution.  In order to address this 
issue, the NSF and the SD School of Mines & Technology are sponsoring a 
Next-Generation Storm Penetrating Aircraft Workshop.  The workshop 
announcement and registration information are included below.  Please 
consider attending the workshop and contributing to the discussion of 
the Next-Generation Storm Penetrating Aircraft. If you cannot attend, 
but wish to contribute to the report to NSF, instructions are also 
provided below.*
*

*Next-Generation Storm Penetrating Aircraft Workshop****
*Rapid City, South Dakota:  23-25 October 2006

The armored T-28 Storm Penetrating Aircraft, operated by the South 
Dakota School of Mines & Technology (SDSM&T) as a lower atmospheric 
research facility under a cooperative agreement with the National 
Science Foundation (NSF), retired from active service in 2005.  The last 
T-28 research mission was to measure lightning-produced NO in the cores 
of Oklahoma thunderstorms in the summer of 2003.  For the last 35 years, 
the T-28 was active in many field projects focusing on thunderstorm 
processes.  Its retirement leaves a significant hole in observational 
capabilities in this area.

A Storm Penetrating Aircraft (SPA) Workshop held in 1999 identified a 
number of science objectives that would benefit from the availability of 
an SPA with greater altitude, endurance and payload capabilities than 
those of the T-28.  Discussions at that workshop, and later engineering 
investigations, identified the Fairchild A-10 ("Warthog") as the prime 
candidate for the Next Generation SPA.  The A-10 would present much 
higher altitude capabilities (~40 kft), payload capacity (up to 6000 lbs 
internal and more than 10,000 lbs external), and on-station time (3-4 
hours).  It now appears that access to an A-10 through a joint working 
arrangement with CIRPAS at the Naval Postgraduate School will become 
available in a couple of years.  To assist in planning the instrument 
payload and aircraft modifications needed to convert the A-10 into an 
SPA, the NSF and SDSM&T will convene a workshop in Rapid City, SD to 
establish the capabilities desired for the Next-Generation Storm 
Penetrating Aircraft.  The A-10's low altitude capabilities, and its gun 
bay that could house several thousand pounds of downward-looking remote 
sensing equipment, would allow it to support other kinds of missions in 
addition to the SPA role.  The dates for the workshop are 23-25 October 
(Monday-Wednesday) 2006, with the workshop starting and ending at noon 
on the respective days.   

The purpose of the workshop will be to assemble a diverse group of 
interests from many areas of the atmospheric and related sciences to 
discuss the utility of the Next-Generation SPA to further research in 
these areas.  The main result of the workshop will be a report to NSF 
outlining proposed experimental objectives, and the platform 
capabilities and necessary instrumentation for such experiments.  This 
report will help the NSF decide what resources to dedicate to support 
the acquisition and modification of an A-10, to function as the 
Next-Generation SPA.

If you are interested in seeing the Next-Generation SPA come to 
fruition, please plan to attend the workshop and participate in 
developing the material for the report (partial travel support will be 
available for a few key participants).  To register for the workshop, 
and obtain further information go to the following URL:

http://www.hpcnet.org/learn/professional/SPAConference.

 If you cannot attend, but wish to contribute to the content of the 
report, please contact John Helsdon (john.helsdon at sdsmt.edu 
<mailto:john.helsdon at sdsmt.edu>) with ideas related to how you would 
envision using the Next-Generation SPA for research in atmospheric 
science, and any related specific SPA requirements of your research.

John Helsdon
Chair of the Faculty and Professor
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences
SD School of Mines and Technology
501 E. St. Joseph St.
Rapid City, SD 57701-3995

-- 
Susan Friberg
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
Office of Corporate Affairs
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, Colorado 80307
Tel. 303.497.1658
Fax  303.497.1654



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