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Ms. Piggy
Returns Home from Bolivia
AOC’s Lockheed WP-3D
Orion N43RF, affectionately known as Ms.
Piggy, returned to its home base in Tampa
in early February after completing a field program
that took the aircraft and its crew afar. On January
7th, the aircraft departed for Santa Cruz, Bolivia
to participate in the South American Low Level
Jet Experiment (SALLJEX), a field program involving
scientists from NOAA and the University of Utah,
as well as a large number of South American participants
from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Argentina.
The objectives of the experiment were to examine
the low level jet, a region of high winds along
the east side of the Andes that flows across several
South American countries and controls the climate
of the La Plata River Basin, to examine large
thunderstorm complexes over northern Argentina,
to map the air flow across the high plains of
the Andes south of La Paz, Bolivia and to examine
the marine boundary layer over the eastern Pacific
Ocean off of the coast of Chile.
Operating
from Viru Viru International Airport in Santa
Cruz, Bolivia, Ms.
Piggy flew 13 lengthy research missions in
support of SALLJEX in flying conditions that one
would say were less than ideal. The low-level
jet flights were particularly rough. The best
way to describe them is to think of riding down
a bumpy dirt road in a wagon without springs for
nine hours. For many of the scientists unaccustomed
to flying in these conditions, their ardor for
wanting to be aboard the aircraft was quickly
dampened. Nevertheless, great science was accomplished
as the aircraft, its instrumentation and crew
worked flawlessly throughout the entire project.
Santa
Cruz, a city of about one million inhabitants,
proved to be an exciting and delightful place
from which to operate. The people there were polite,
courteous and friendly. While driving was a challenge,
the crew encountered no problems during the month-long
project. The collection of vehicles observed was
astonishing as you shared the road with modern
SUV’s, trucks of all sizes and description,
horse drawn wagons and the ubiquitous Japanese
built taxis whose right hand drives had been converted
to left hand drives. Well, at least the steering
wheel had been moved to the left side. The dash
instruments were still on the right side in front
of the passenger seat.
One
of the more interesting challenges for the project
was obtaining overflight clearances from the many
independent countries in South America. Often
it was unclear whether the clearance had to be
obtained from the particular country’s military
authority or its civil aviation agency. Every
flight that entered Argentine or Chilean airspace
had to be cleared separately, and usually several
advance days notice were required. Fortunately,
AOC had the outstanding support of the U.S. Embassies
in all of the countries that Ms.
Piggy over flew, so we encountered no delays
or refusals during the entire project.
Ms.
Piggy returned to MacDill AFB on February
10, and after a short reconfiguration period of
ten days departed for Anchorage, AK for another
challenging project in support of NOAA’s
satellite programs.
For
additional information on SALLJEX, please visit
http://www.joss.ucar.edu/salljex |
