HURRICANE AND SEVERE STORM SENTINEL (HS3) FLIGHT REPORTS V1

The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) Flight Reports provide information about flights flown by the WB-57 and Global Hawk aircrafts during the Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel (HS3) campaign from 2012 to 2014. Goals for HS3 included: assessing the relative roles of large-scale environment and storm-scale internal processes; and addressing the controversial role of the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) in tropical storm formation and intensification as well as the role of deep convection in the inner-core region of storms. Both aircraft are capable of extended operations ranging from 6.5 hours up to 24 hours. Together they can carry large payloads and support altitudes ranging from sea-level to altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet. The large payloads bring a new capability to the science community for measuring, monitoring and observing remote locations of Earth not feasible or practical with piloted aircraft, most other robotic or remotely operated aircraft, or space satellites. The HS3 Flight Reports include information regarding flight number, flight time (beginning and end), location of the flight (flight segments), flight purpose, and comments regarding the flight and mission. In addition, some reports include corresponding satellite imagery, maps of flight tracks and dropsonde locations, and plotted instrument retrievals.