The sun rises over a windy AMF-3 site. Note the wind blown snow over the surface.
41 mph sustained winds are not really Pilatus or DataHawk friendly…
The weather lived up to expectations today — windy and cold. Winds have been 20–40 mph all day, and while the weather is a bit warmer (above zero!), the winds are unfavorable for the smaller planes we have with us on this trip. We had some more pre-flight checks to execute and set out this morning to ensure that everything is ready to go when the weather breaks. On the way back to the NOC camp for lunch, visibility was pretty poor, and we plowed through some substantial snow drifts. This afternoon I told the team that we would take a “down” afternoon. While some might wonder why we would take a down day so soon, the fact is that we’ll have to take some down time eventually, and I’ve learned through the course of a few different campaigns that there is no better time than a day where the weather is bad anyway! Down periods allow the team to catch up with everyday, but necessary things like e-mail, exercise, laundry, class work, and phone calls home. While not critical at this point, the small amount of time off will relieve pressure coming from these demands down the line!
Tevis, getting ready to step outside from the hangar in full Arctic gear.
The Pilatus airframe “cold-soaks” in the bed of our truck inside the hangar. This test allowed us to ensure that all systems would operate as expected after substantial exposure to the cold conditions.
Tevis reprograming one of the DataHawk 2 aircraft with the latest software from CU.
Given the lack of excitement today, I’ll keep this short and leave you with a few photos of our day here. It’s hard to know exactly when things will settle down weather-wise, but for the time being it seems to be some time away. Hopefully the forecast will look a bit different tomorrow.
