{"id":44,"date":"2015-08-05T06:33:30","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T06:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/?p=44"},"modified":"2015-08-05T06:33:30","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T06:33:30","slug":"a-bear-of-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/2015\/08\/05\/a-bear-of-a-day\/","title":{"rendered":"A bear of a day\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

We woke\u00a0 up to a windy morning \u2014 somewhat surprising, given the weather forecast \u2014 but winds were at a low enough level that we made the decision to prepare to fly.\u00a0 Before we could get out the door, however, Al let us know that the rig that had been stuck had made it to a pull off and that the road would be open for at least a few hours.\u00a0 So, he and I took the one truck we had on site, dropped Dale, Nathan and Will off at the AMF3, and then set out on the 15 mile drive to Kuparuk Camp to retrieve our rental truck.\u00a0 After doing so and returning to Oliktok, I caught up with the rest of the group and we prepared for test flights.<\/p>\n

\"Dale,<\/a>

Dale, Nathan and Will prepare to launch the DataHawk 2 from the runway.<\/p><\/div>\n

In planning for the deployment, we\u2019d decided that it would likely make sense to operate out of the pickup truck near the southwest end of the USAF runway.\u00a0 Approximately five minutes after having set up our ground station out there, we noticed a large creature moving around the tundra.\u00a0 Sure enough, it was a brown (grizzly) bear, apparently foraging for food by digging holes in the tundra and rooting around in there with his nose.\u00a0 We determined that the bear was far enough away for us to continue doing what we were doing so long as one of us kept a close eye on the bear\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A photo (from a safe distance!) of the grizzly bear we called “Cinnabun” (due to its cinnamon color) who combed the tundra for snacks for much of the afternoon.<\/p><\/div>\n

With the winds subsiding a bit, I wish that I could say that we had a terrific day filled with flights \u2014 unfortunately, that is not the case.\u00a0 Although the bear did come close enough for us to head inside for a little while, it was ultimately our equipment that most directly impacted our operations.\u00a0 Before departing for Oliktok, our team, and others, tested the equipment and code to make sure that everything was working as it should.\u00a0 But given the struggles we had trying to fly today, it would not have been evident.\u00a0 Beginning right before lunch, we executed a series of test flights with very mixed results.\u00a0 We still have all of our equipment, but currently the aircraft are not flying as intended, which makes them difficult to control to the degree that we would like.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you how frustrating that is given that the weather was very reasonable for flying this afternoon.\u00a0 With one hour left before dinner, Dale, Will and Nathan are working hard to both diagnose what was going on within aircraft\u2019s computer that could result in the struggles we faced and to repair the minor aircraft damage that occurred as a result of rough landings.\u00a0 I\u2019m really hoping that by tomorrow, which is also forecast to be very reasonable from a weather perspective, things will be ready to go and we can get out to collect the scientific data that we\u2019re here to gather.\u00a0 Time will tell\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We woke\u00a0 up to a windy morning \u2014 somewhat surprising, given the weather forecast \u2014 but winds were at a low enough level that we made the decision to prepare to fly.\u00a0 Before we could get out the door, however, Al let us know that the rig that had been stuck had made it to… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-04 07:42:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/erasmus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}