NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) Flight Level Data

NOAA AOC WP-3D Research Flight Data is digital data set DSI-6420, archived at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). This data set is meteorological data gathered by Lockheed WP-3D Orion aircraft, operated by the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) at MacDill AFB, Florida. Data is provided by the Science and Engineering Division of AOC to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). The WP-3D aircraft perform many projects throughout the year. Examples of these projects would be hurricane research, atmospheric chemistry, thunderstorm investigations, and winter weather missions. Each of these projects consists of a series of individual flights. For instance, during hurricane projects, the P-3 may fly numerous flights through different tropical cyclones. For each archived project, there are multiple directories consisting of individual flights. The data in these flight directories contain the actual raw meteorological parameters obtained from sensors located in different positions on the aircraft. The data is initially written to a digital data tape on the aircraft and then later converted to a file for faster processing and archiving. Each flight folder also contains a scanned image of the actual flight manifest, the navigation log, and the mission observation logs. The flight-level data file contains measurements acquired in one second intervals. The following is a generalized list of these measured parameters: Time, GPS position data, inertial data, radar altimeter measurements, liquid water, total temperature, dewpoint temperature, attack pressure, slip pressure, differential attack and slip pressures, and static and dynamic pressure. Depending on the needs of each individual project, other sources of data will be added or subtracted from this list. As of publication this record consists of 5 projects: 1) NOAA-42 Aircraft-N42RF during the 2003 Hurricane season, the Tamdar project, and a wind calibration flight. 2) NOAA-43 Aircraft-N43RF-2003 Sar Pod, Hurricane, and Extratropical Season as well as the SFMR test flight missions. 3) NOAA-49 Aircraft-N49RF 2004 Winter Storms Experiment. 4) NOAA-43 Name Experiment 2004. 5) NOAA-49 Aircraft N49RF Hurricane Season 2004.