Current Activities

The National Science Foundation (NSF) removed the armored T-28 from its Lower Atmospheric Observing Facilities pool of research facilities early in 2004. The T-28 research group at SDSMT with the Earth Observing Laboratory at NCAR is organizing 16 years of field data and developing an on-line data archive. The aircraft has been parted out. The fuselage, wings, and a few other remaining pieces of hardware are currently in storage in Norman, OK, with plans to use them to create a display in the proposed National Weather Museum being organized, there. This site is still under construction, but is accessible to everyone at http://www.eol.ucar.edu/projects/t28/ .

A collaborative proposal has been submitted to NSF by the Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) at the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School, and SDSMT, to obtain, modify, and operate an A-10 aircraft as a storm-penetrating research aircraft facility that serve the atmospheric research community. It is hoped that the U. S. Air Force will transfer an A-10 to CIRPAS in late 2010 at which time modifications and alterations can begin if plans proceed and funding is granted.

An open workshop was convened in Rapid City on 23-25 October 2006 to develop a list of capabilities that is needed if such a platform is to support current and future research needs of the atmospheric science community. The final report from this work shop is Report of the October 2006 Storm Penetrating Aircraft Workshop

Additional information on historical activities related to operations of the SDSMT armored T-28 storm-penetrating aircraft can be found at http://www.ias.sdsmt.edu/institute/t28/ .

Last update 24 November 2009

Dr. Andrew Detwiler

Institute of Atmospheric Sciences

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

Rapid City, SD 57701

(605) 394-1995

Andrew dot Detwiler at sdsmt dot edu