So sorry about not writing since Monday! This week has been crazy hectic and this is really the first day that absolutely nothing is planned for us. We moved down to Irvine yesterday and are now all settled in to our houses for six weeks (the Arroyo Vista houses on UC Irvine's campus). Each group has its own 8-bedroom house. Each bedroom is a double, but we all have our own rooms, so that's nice! The WAS (whole air sampling; other air group) house, ocean house, and land house are all next to each other and our house is kind of in the distance with a frat house in between. They are pretty nice but definitely remind me of living in the dorm, and they also smell like dorm. Haha. I think I may need to invest in a better towel (at least to take to the beach with me) and possibly a blanket. So far my room has stayed warm and muggy so sheets are keeping me plenty comfortable while sleeping! Each house also has a large common area, kitchen, and laundry facilities.
Backing up a few days... Tuesday was flight day #2. I flew for the first time on Tuesday afternoon. My whole group was on this flight, though for three people it was their second flight. We flew all around the LA area. We did six missed approaches (three at San Bernardino, two at Riverside, and one at Ontario). The pilots had a lot of fun with the missed approaches, trying to get as low as possible. Unfortunately for us, we were able to fly in the boundary layer the entire time, which made the 2-hour flight extremely uncomfortable. The MASTER instrument was also off, so the pilots had more freedom and could make tighter turns. Two people, both in my group, threw up during the flight. Thankfully I did not see, hear, or smell them, so all was good. I felt a little hot and was nervous during the whole flight (my hands got sweaty...). I had forgotten my neck fan so that kind of sucked! It was definitely the worst flight out of all of them as far as turbulence/comfort goes.
The Wednesday flights ended up being 1000x better than the Tuesday flight. I flew Wednesday morning. It was like heaven compared to my other flight! I had to take off in the very last row, but had no issues. I was dancing around the plane almost the whole time! Both flights on Wednesday went up to Delano (where the land group was making field measurements), did a few lines over the vineyards, then did some lines over the oil fields, spiraled over the oil fields, and then finished up by flying low over a couple of dairies to get some good data for the WAS group. I ended up sitting at AVOCET (Atmospheric Vertical Observations of Carbon Dioxide in the Earth's Troposphere), Melissa Yang's instruments, for about half the flight. No one on our flight got sick, though we were told later that one of the flight engineers, David, had the flu. (He was bundled up and sleeping on the floor the whole flight. I just thought he was tired. He didn't end up flying the second flight.) I was sitting at AVOCET for the spiral and got some video of it (below). I also got to sit in the cockpit for landing, which was SO fun! The pilots are hilarious. I also got a video of the landing. Definitely glad I got to do that. :)
After sleeping part of the afternoon away and then the return of the last flight, we took all of the instruments off the plane (deintegration). That night, my group celebrated at Red Robin (don't judge...there are very little non-chain options near the hotel), and then hung out in the hot tub with everyone else including the flight crew. Some people went out to the Yard House for post-hot tub drinks but I was way too exhausted!
We didn't have to go in to pack the instruments until 1 pm on Thursday, so that meant sleeping in! Thursday definitely felt like a Saturday to me. Flying was exhausting, and even though it had only been three days, it felt like an entire week. My group went in to DAOF to pack up the instruments and load them onto the UHaul truck. Jimmy, one of Barry's researchers, is driving the truck back to Houston. Later that evening, we gathered around the hot tub and discussed project ideas. Nothing is set in stone but a lot of us want to study similar things. I just want to study something related to weather!
Friday, we checked out early and all went up to Edwards AFB and the Dryden Flight Research Center for a tour and stop at the gift shop. The best part of the tour was definitely seeing the Global Hawks and the other Shuttle Carrier. I spent double my budget at the gift shop, but it was definitely worth it. Why do I have to have so many family members? ;) I'm excited for everyone to receive their gifts though! I ended up buying myself a license plate holder (NASA ... I need my space), a windbreaker with the NASA/Dryden logo, and a plastic tumbler. My gifts shall be a secret!
The BNBs (Bad News Barrys, aka my group) stopped by the DAOF on our way out to see the DC-8, which landed in the morning. We even got to go inside! It's way different than the P-3, though I did enjoy the P-3! I'm not upset at all about it. Engine 1 on the DC-8 actually flamed out on Sunday during the DC3 mission in the Midwest (chasing storms), and then they got a piece of a scope stuck inside of it trying to figure out what was wrong, so they cancelled the rest of the flights and flew back with only three engines.
Afterwards, we made the trek down to Irvine, avoiding the LA area/traffic thanks to Alexx's directions through the high desert. After settling in, I went to sushi with Nicole (my mentor), Eric (an NSERC employee of some sort), and Jacey (a fellow intern). We waited for an hour outside of Nana San, which we knew would be good because it was packed with Asians and they just...kept...eating. That was my first time eating sushi and I was quite terrified of the raw fish. It ended up being okay! We had a lot of fun! And a big thank you to Nicole for the date. ;)
Wow...this ended up being really long. Thank you for reading all of this. :p Time to enjoy this lazy weekend in Irvine!
I don't have all my pictures on my computer yet, and uploading pictures on here is a pain, but here are some videos I took!
P-3B taxiing towards the runway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuGpB5IgOzA
Spiral over the oil fields: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po4w35zJMZ4
Landing the P-3B: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27QAOdtS1z4
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