The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is seeking a
new Nose Weather Radar System for use in the agency's WP-3D Orion
aircraft, according to contract documents released Tuesday.
The NOAA Aircraft Operations Center
(AOC) instruments, maintains, and operates aircraft in support of a
variety of meteorological and oceanographic research projects. Two of
AOC's aircraft are WP-3D Orions (a variant of the Lockheed P-3C),
manufactured in the 1970's. Each aircraft is equipped with a Collins
WXR-700 C Weather radar system mounted in the nose of the aircraft.
The system was originally installed in 1984. “This system is no
longer being manufactured and some repair parts are no longer
available,” NOAA said in a Request For Information (RFI) document
made public Tuesday. “NOAA/AOC is considering alternatives to
replace the nose weather radar system with a commercially available
system. Since these aircraft are primarily used for weather research
the ability of the radar to penetrate and identify severe weather is
critical to the safety and success of the aircraft mission.”
The WP-3D aircraft fly in close
proximity to and penetrate the severe weather in hurricanes and
thunderstorms. These flights are often conducted at very low
altitudes. “It is desired that the weather radar system have
features that improves the situational awareness of the flight crew
under these circumstances,” NOAA said in the RFI document. “It is
also used to identify weather features important to the mission such
as hurricane eye location. It should have features to allow the crew
to adjust the system parameters to fit the mission situation in order
to best map the weather hazards.”
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