TAMDAR and Airborne Weather Research

[blackrain]

I remember some talk of using aircraft (manned and unmanned) in domestic weather research. As a resident of Tornado Alley I know The University of Oklahoma and the National Severe Storms Lab do a lot research on tornadoes and other severe weather using mostly ground assets. I just found out about a system known as TAMDAR that is/was installed on Regional Airliners (as opposed to larger airliners that tend to fly above the weather) to remotely collect weather data and download in real time to ground stations. Does anyone think CAP aircraft could be equipped with this system to help in research/forecasting? Is anyone very familiar with TAMDAR? I admit I don't know a lot of the details.

[Flying Pig]

GREAT!!!  Just what a CAP plane needs......more weight!

[bosshawk]

And deliberately fllying into or near severe weather!!!!!!  Not me, Clyde.

[blackrain]

I just sent a question to my old supervisor at NSSL. Hopefully he can enlighten me too.

They used way back when, instrumented ground vehicles to drive out in western Oklahoma to get weather data at different locations on days conducive to T-storm formation. I worked on the equipment that went on the vehicles

Most definitely was NOT storm chasing though some of them participate in that on other projects.

The idea was to gather data ahead of storm formation. Once the storms started forming the experiment was over and everyone went home.

As far a weight I don't believe the equipment is very heavy. I would say less than 30 lbs but I'll have to wait on someone more knowledgeble than me to confirm.

[Al Sayre]

Based on this:  http://www.airdat.com/tamdar/tech_docs/TAMDAR%20Overview%20101904.pdf

I doubt that they'd be interested in putting it on our aircraft.  If you want to know what the weather is at 1000'agl, just look up,  it isn't that far...

[blackrain]

Based on this:  http://www.airdat.com/tamdar/tech_docs/TAMDAR%20Overview%20101904.pdf

I doubt that they'd be interested in putting it on our aircraft.  If you want to know what the weather is at 1000'agl, just look up,  it isn't that far...

Fair enough I was just in the engineering section. NSSL has some 100 lb brain types who understand atmospheric science/forecast models waaaayyy better than I do. Like kids on Christmas morning when the forecast includes the words "moderate risk"

As for winds aloft the G1000 already does a pretty good job of giving those to the pilot.

[MikeD]

A guy at work is a big fan of TAMDAR, but it's almost like he drank the Kool-Aid.  I think we're planning on putting it on most of our science aircraft including the Ikhana* and Global Hawks, or at least talking about it.  Those all have a larger payload capacity then a 182 though.   We'd probably need a high flight rate for it to be useful for someone, but a second opinion from the WX wizzards would be good to have. 

*Our RQ-9 Reaper, supposedly a Native American word for "Intelligent", but speculated to actually stand for "I Kant Handle Another NASA Acronym".   

[PHall]

A guy at work is a big fan of TAMDAR, but it's almost like he drank the Kool-Aid.  I think we're planning on putting it on most of our science aircraft including the Ikhana* and Global Hawks, or at least talking about it.  Those all have a larger payload capacity then a 182 though.   We'd probably need a high flight rate for it to be useful for someone, but a second opinion from the WX wizzards would be good to have. 

*Our RQ-9 Reaper, supposedly a Native American word for "Intelligent", but speculated to actually stand for "I Kant Handle Another NASA Acronym".   

Ah yes, NASA-Dryden at it's finest!

[bosshawk]

A real live embeded acronym: oh boy, you get extra points for one of those.

[SarDragon]

A real live embeded acronym: oh boy, you get extra points for one of those.

I like recursive acronyms, too:

PHP — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
and
GNU — GNU's Not Unix

BTW, GPS is not an acronym, nor is VOR, but radar and laser are. Chew on that for a while.

[Spaceman3750]

A real live embeded acronym: oh boy, you get extra points for one of those.

I like recursive acronyms, too:

PHP — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
and
GNU — GNU's Not Unix

BTW, GPS is not an acronym, nor is VOR, but radar and laser are. Chew on that for a while.

Mmm, PHP.

How is VOR not an acronym (VHF Omnidirectional Radio)?

[Thom]

A real live embeded acronym: oh boy, you get extra points for one of those.

I like recursive acronyms, too:

PHP — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
and
GNU — GNU's Not Unix

BTW, GPS is not an acronym, nor is VOR, but radar and laser are. Chew on that for a while.

Mmm, PHP.

How is VOR not an acronym (VHF Omnidirectional Radio)?

Well, it might be, if you pronounce it differently than the other 99.999% of us.

This is always fun: Acronym does not equal Initialism.

GPS and VOR are Initialisms

VORTAC and LASER are Acronyms

Initialisms are spelled out, letter by letter

Acronyms are pronounced in a compacted format, based on their spelling, but in any case typically (some would say always...) with fewer syllables than if you spelled out the letters

Again, ATC (pronounced ay-tee-sea) is an Initialism, ARTCC (pronounced art-sea) is an Acronym. MBT (pronounced emm-bee-tee) is an Initialism, while LCAC (pronounced ell-kack) is an Acronym.

Both Acronyms and Initialisms are forms of Abbreviation in the common usage, though technically they should be considered separate items, with Abbreviation reserved for those shortened versions of words or phrases which are neither an Acronym nor an Initialism, such as Mr. or Mrs.

Interestingly CAP can be either an Acronym or an Initialism, depending on pronunciation, and is commonly used in both manners.


Thom

[blackrain]

A guy at work is a big fan of TAMDAR, but it's almost like he drank the Kool-Aid.  I think we're planning on putting it on most of our science aircraft including the Ikhana* and Global Hawks, or at least talking about it.  Those all have a larger payload capacity then a 182 though.   We'd probably need a high flight rate for it to be useful for someone, but a second opinion from the WX wizzards would be good to have. 

*Our RQ-9 Reaper, supposedly a Native American word for "Intelligent", but speculated to actually stand for "I Kant Handle Another NASA Acronym".   

You know Hurricane Season will be coming up and we could put several 182s in the air for the cost of 1 WC-130J. That should help CAP make a budget conscious Congress happy

I can actually envision some scenarios where CAP aircraft if equipped with TAMDARS or something like it could help in NOAA Research. Of course I don't know a per plane cost to equip a 182. I do know scientists like a representitive cross section of atmospheric conditions with more than just ground data. They especially like to correlate data taken at the same time with ground, radar and aerial sources. One scientist once pointed out to me that weather data gathering sites tend to be concentrated around population centers. Not really suprising but it leaves a lot of areas where the weather actually forms unmonitored with corresponding holes in the data.

[Al Sayre]

A WC-130J can safely penetrate a hurricane, it is very unlikely that a C-182 can.  As a pilot, I want no part of flying anywhere near where they want that kind of data collected.  Flying into that kind of weather in a small aircraft is generally prefaced by "Hey y'all, watch this", and ends with an NTSB report...

[blackrain]

A WC-130J can safely penetrate a hurricane, it is very unlikely that a C-182 can.  As a pilot, I want no part of flying anywhere near where they want that kind of data collected.  Flying into that kind of weather in a small aircraft is generally prefaced by "Hey y'all, watch this", and ends with an NTSB report...

Just to emphasize.......the first part about flying into hurricanes was meant purely as a joke. Sorry for the confusion

[SarDragon]

Thank you, Thom!