SARP First Science Flight a Success!

The first science flight to collected data for the SARP mission was a success. The only compromise the DC-8 pilots had to make - based on input from our mission meteorologist and the MASTER operators - was to cut the four overflights at Monterey Bay to two due to cloud coverage. To compensate, the DC-8 pilots did two overflights of Morro Bay.


The first set of data collected was using the Whole Air Sampler (WAS) to collect dairy farm emissions over Central California at low altitude (1,000 feet).

Dr. Melissa Yang of UC Irvine assisted the SARP students with operating the WAS. Dr. Yang has found in her previous research that there are elevated emissions of ethanol being produced by dairy farm operations in the Central California Valley.

Remote sensing - using the MASTER instrument - of the almond orchards and cotton fields for the agriculture project was next on the list. We had two flight lines - one over each of these fields.

Unfortunately we found out after we landed that we were a few seconds off of our line for the almond orchard. It was important to be right in line because we had a ground-sampling group down in the field collecting ground-based data at the same time. It is very common to have ground-based data supporting the airborne-based data, but in this case our flight line was off by enough that we missed the area where the field group was. Luckily we have another flight Friday where we plan to do two overflights for each of the fields to make sure we get good data for the agriculture project.

Lastly, we did remote sensing of Monterey Bay using the MASTER instrument. Again, the original four flight lines had to be cut to two because of the presence of fog (seen in the upper portion of the picture above); but the two overflights we were able to do were right where they needed to be.

Google Earth shows us the actual flight track of the DC-8 for the July 22nd flight minus the first leg of low level flights (see previous blog for original flight plan).