In her prime in the late 1960s and 1970s she plied the North Atlantic for Alitalia hauling the rich and famous along with holiday makers.
Today – 45 years later – she is still working as an atmosphere testing vehicle for her new owner and carer the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Where once there were luxurious seats with passengers being served champagne and caviar today she is crammed with scientific equipment.
NASA’s Douglas DC-8, the most rugged commercial aircraft ever built, can be found wherever there are extremes of weather in the Arctic, Antarctic, Iceland and Australia during the cyclone season or just around the US flying through thunderstorms and hurricanes.
During the month of August, NASA’s DC-8 completed flights in Florida aimed at collecting data on high-altitude crystals for the High Ice Water Content (HIWC) mission.
High ice water content can be found within large convective storms and can result in aircraft engines losing power or not functioning properly.
Researchers will use the data to develop technology that can be used on-board commercial aircraft to avoid high ice water content conditions and provide a safer flight for passengers.
The video gives an inside look at the HIWC mission, including research done in and around Hurricane Danny, as well as a look at the instruments being used on-board the research aircraft.
Researchers and pilots on-board worked with satellite information from the ground to find regions of high ice water content within the convective systems.
The month before in July the DC-8 was based in Kansas City to chase thunderstorms and Alan Bavley and photographer Allison Long from the Kansas City Star went along for a ride.
Alan Bavley reported thus;
“The radar screens in the jetliner show massive storm systems around Wichita and Dodge City growing and beginning to merge.
Any commercial aircraft in the area have already diverted. But this DC-8 heads right between the storms. Then it flies circles around them.
“Everybody is trying to get away. We’re going towards it,” flight navigator Walter Klein says. “They’re thinking, ‘What’s wrong with these guys?’”
No thrill-seekers here. These storm chasers are on a scientific mission. They’re trying to figure out how to better predict a little-examined peculiarity of summer weather on the Great Plains: its enormous, and often ferocious, night-time thunderstorms.
The voluminous data they’re gathering — information that may take years to analyse — will be used to improve computer models to better foretell where night-time storms will occur and how much rain will fall. More precise predictions would better warn the public about flooding and could help farmers decide when to plant or harvest.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty about when these storms are going to form, if these storms will form and where they will form,” said Richard Ferrare, NASA’s chief scientist on the mission.
Right now, the bull’s-eye for a storm prediction may be the entire state of Kansas.
“We want to shrink that,” he said.
