ACTOS – a rising television star

In the morning on the way to the airport we were welcomed by a light drizzle from a stratocumulus. It was a full cloud cover of the sky but as it was forecasted, we were counting on that the clouds will brake later. Hands off at 10:30, everything and everyone are ready and then... no, we coudn't fly at 11:00, a cloud base was too low. We had to postpone the flight until 13:30.

Taking photos isn't so easy

In the meanwhile, on the airport came a cameraman. It turned out that a Portuguese television got interested in our studies (or more precisely, in us)! Karine, as the only one among us speaking Portuguese, gave an interview and there is a chance that we will be even on a national TV.

Finally, a take-off took place at 13:39. At first, we did a vertical profile up to 7000 ft, going further and further from the island. The first thin cloud layer appeared at 300 m. An inversion of about 3 K/100 m was located at 1200 m. Apart from an increase of particles above the cloud, there was also a slight increase inside it!

Our Stratocumulus with a tempting Cumulus
in the background

Afterwards we turned over and did 3 dolphin flights from above the inversion to below it, each on the same route. A cloud top was very well determined, the edge was sharp, in contrast to its bottom. LWC was reaching 0.4 g/m^3.

Then, we did 4 horizontal legs: one above the stratocumuli, 2 inside them (although the second one was less dense, with LWC only 0.25 g/m^3), and the last one below them. We were keeping the same cloud group for a whole time and we omitted cumuli above Graciosa though they were tempting – the only clouds we measured were Sc. An interesting fact, above the clouds there were some layers with different and rather constant particle concentration. A landing was smooth.

This rock is supposed to look like a whale

As the G1 is flying tomorrow in the morning, we're having a briefing at 12, so we can sleep a bit longer.

Juergen, Alwin and Birgit – thanks for the flight!

posted by Dominika