You might not think of a coral atoll and bicycles in the same sentence, but around Kwaj it makes good sense. The island is small enough that cars would just get in the way and would require fuel to be shipped in. The temperature is a little warm, and very uniform over the year. Most of the roads are paved. [Did you know that the first impetus for paved roads in the United States in the late 1800's came from bicycling clubs?] And, the island is as flat as the proverbial pancake There are a variety of trucks and vans (down to mini-vans), and electric golf carts for official use, but I expect to be here the whole month without ever driving.

The thing that makes biking interesting is the tradewind, which blows almost all the time, all year round. Think "wind", not "breeze", at least from the perspective of the average bike rider. When I go to the Operations Center before 5:30 a.m., I cut across the wind until the road rounds the end of the airplane runway, then the wind is at my back as the road takes me halfway down the runway to the trailers. The ride from the Operations Center to Building 1009, where the KWAJEX offices are housed, is more challenging. The two are almost directly across the runway from each other, but one is required to go around the runway. So, it is necessary to either go upwind or downwind, then circle around the end of the runway and face wind of the opposite direction on the second half of the ride.

KWAJEX bought a hundred bikes for participants in the colors red, green, and blue, and equipped each with baskets, a flashlight, and a lock. Kwaj has a regulation that everyone out after dark must carry a flashlight. The Operations Center lacks streetlights, so on a moonless or overcast night it can get very dark! Another interesting regulation is that traffic on the road that surrounds the runway must stop short of the end of the runway and assess whether an aircraft are taking off or landing. If so, the vehicle must wait by the stop sign until the aircraft clears the area.

At the other extreme of power and speed, two of the three aircraft participating in KWAJEX were sent to fly through the clouds and rain that were expected to develop this afternoon. When I first heard the jet engine roar during the afternoon I was oddly pleased to realize that that was our plane taking off to collect observations of clouds. It was a tough decision as to whether the flights should take place because the forecast was not very encouraging for the heavy rain activity that we would prefer to study. Nonetheless, it was possible to argue that some heavy rain might form. To clinch the deal, there was a reasonably good TRMM satellite overpass a little after 4.p.m. The clouds that they found were not too impressive, but everyone was very pleased with the coordination between the aircraft and the clean datasets that were collected.

As part of this "Aircraft Operations Period" I issued my first schedule of weather balloon launches. It consisted of a "regular day", featuring four launches (at 00Z, 06Z, 12Z, and 18Z) and a special launch at 03Z. The idea is to provide reasonable coverage in time at a reasonable price, getting the most bang for our bucks. Jeff left this afternoon, so I am really on my own now.

George Huffman