A hurricane mission strategy using the Aerosonde

The Aerosonde is a small, robotic aircraft designed to undertake a wide range of operations in a highly flexible and inexpensive mode. The basic characteristics and details of recent operations can be obtained from our web site at www.aerosonde.com

The Mark 2 Aerosonde is now undergoing flight tests and will move into operations in 2000. This aircraft has substantial improvements in software and the powerplant that increase both reliability and performance. The LEO satellite systems are also now finally at a stage where we can utilise them for long-range reconnaissance purposes and we shall be adding this capacity in 2000.

These improvements bring us to the stage where we can prepare for our first hurricane missions. This talk will discuss our basic mission strategy. We shall discuss two strategies, one for environmental and outer-circulation monitoring and one for a core penetration. The outer circulation strategy will consist of a combination of boundary-layer flights and “swallow” flights to take soundings up to over 15,000ft. The core penetration will initially be used to provide continuous monitoring of the cyclone intensity. In both cases, the aircraft will operate autonomously under command from a regional, or global command center.