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KB2VXA > TODAY 03.08.15 12:33l 38 Lines 1973 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 7612_VK6ZRT
Read: GUEST
Subj: Re: Today Aug 2
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Sent: 150803/1119Z @:VK6ZRT.#BUN.#WA.AUS.OC #:7612 [Boyanup] $:7612_VK6ZRT
From: KB2VXA@VK6ZRT.#BUN.#WA.AUS.OC
To : TODAY@WW
"Today, improvements in technology help to monitor the progression
and location of storms like the one that downed Flight 191."
One of those improvements I witnessed first hand, wind shear monitors that
ring the airport that detect a microburst. That is a heavy downdraft of cold
air pouring out of a cloud like water dumped from a bucket. I saw damage they
cause in a wooded area, trees flattened in an outward radiating pattern. When
working at Newark (NJ) International Airport now renamed Freedom
International I often worked in a parking lot exit toll booth out in what may
be called a remote outpost. On the 11-7 shift that would bore me to tears
except for my scanner, at that location two sources of interference were
heard, a buzz from the rotating radar 50 yards away and the wind shear
monitors. They sounded off each in turn around the perimiter sending data to
a central point, the sound of the bursts rose and fell depending on distance
from me at one end of the property.
Sometimes these TODAY articles are a little off like this one. Right, the
pilot seeing lightning ahead should have been more prudent BUT for two
things, they often fly through thunderstorms and sometimes get hit by
lightning with no trouble at all and little to nothing was known about
microbursts. In fact I never heard the word until a few years after the
crash. The other is the killer, remember I said I saw trees flattened?
Imagine a plane hit by a microburst, it's like getting clobbered by a maul
and there's no escape, the plane litterally gets knocked out of the sky.
"New Jersey, the most American of all states. It has everything from
wilderness to the Mafia. All the great things and all the worst,
like Route 22."
Jean Shepherd K2ORS (SK) & WOR radio personality
73 de Warren
Station powered by JCP&L atomic energy, operator powered by natural gas.
Message timed by NIST: 03-Aug-2015 at 11:19 GMT
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