Mar 2:  Transit Wake Island to Guam.  

The  C130 left the day before to provide support for the DC-8 that had flown directly from Kona to Guam and possibly position itself for getting in early at Hong Kong (HK) to obtain badges before the office closed for the weekend.  Because of ongoing last minute questions from Peking the final authorization for landing in HK was held up and that flight was put on hold.

Flight 7 Summary – Wake Island to Guam transit

This flight was planned to evaluate the southernmost extent of outflow influencing the central North Pacific.  This was to be accomplished through an in-progress wall flown due west to find any pollution layers, a constant altitude leg due south between 19N and 10N latitude to observe the transition from Asian influence to tropical conditions, and another in-progress wall into Guam sampling clean tropical air.

Results:

Evidence of Asian outflow on the in-progress wall heading east from Wake Island was not compelling in terms of CO, but a layer of elevated NOy and ozone was located at 18Kft.  Flying at this altitude on the southbound leg revealed a distinct transition to cleaner conditions around 13.5N latitude.  Despite this transition, the in-progress wall into Guam was not dramatically cleaner than conditions flying out of Wake Island further to the north.