Pacific Rim 2000 Flight Day Report
Date:  17 August 2000
Takeoff Location and Time: GMT 229:21:03:41
Landing Location and Time: GMT 230:04:29:00
 
Transit from Christchurch, New Zealand to Adelaide, Australia with 
data collection over Macquarie Island and one site on Tasmania.
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Flight Lines and Comments:

At pre-flight briefing Gordon Fullerton (our astronaut/pilot) noted that
it would add no time to take data on the return from the Strathblane and
Mt Franklin racetracks over Tasmania.  Once in the air, we followed up
on his suggestion and added a 20 MHz XTI1 line over Strathblane to cover
the entire site with a DEM and a 40 MHz XTI1 line from the opposite 
direction over Mt Franklin over the region of higher interest.

Macquarie was about 80% cloud covered, though open in spots.  Macquerie
looks like a big iceberg with lakes.  We nailed the island and the Bishop
and Clerk Islands, which have never been previously mapped.

Macquarie Island 193-1:  Entire island in swath, with Bishop and Clerk Isl.

Macquarie Island 13-1:   About half the island in the swath, with sea-cliffs
in the mid-range.  This should help to unwrap the mosaicked DEM.  (If the 
sea-cliffs were in the near-range, they probably would be laid-over.)

Macquarie Island 193-2:  MASTER primary, AIRSAR ATI2.  60% cloud cover 
over the island.

Strathblane 343-1: Smooth line -- extended at the end "real-time" by PI to
ensure coverage.  A little bit of roll variation during the extension.

Strathblane 163-1:  Smooth line -- confirmed coverage. Cloudy over site.
Strathblane 343-2:  Smooth line -- 20 MHz XTI1 coverage for DEM of site.
(Bonus line provided by pilots.)

MtFranklin 324-1:  EGI GPS getting worse, smooth line otherwise.  Good for MASTER.
MtFranklin 144-1:  Some P-band RFI.  Clear for MASTER.
MtFranklin 324-1:  Clear for MASTER.  P-band RFI begins just after CPA.  
Delay on data valid bit being set:  not until shortly after the beginning of the line.

AIRSAR Hardware Status:

Soldered the patch on the C-band antenna before this flight.  No difference
noted on VSWR; but we're only transmitting from the top antenna today, so we
might not have noticed it.  Surveys look great.

EGI GPS stayed in "C" mode for almost the entire flight.  PDOP was low until the
Mt. Franklin site.  It popped into "8" mode at the beginning of the second 
Mt. Franklin line, so we circled, and it returned to "C" without a reset.  Saw some
DCG-P dropouts before the beginning of the MtFranklin 144-1 line.

Other Comments on the Flight:  

Very smooth flight for AIRSAR; cloudy for MASTER except over Mt. Franklin.
Thanks to the pilots for the bonus lines!

General Mission Status:

Ready for first Adelaide local tomorrow.