Reed Timmers new Dominator 3

[Warren Faidley]

According to social media reports, the TIV data was incomplete. The "anemometers were not working" and the wind data are "estimates" from pressure sensors. In an effort to be 100% transparent and fair, I asked for clarification regarding the TIV data and it's usefulness in peer-reviewed level research. I also asked about calibrated instruments on the TIV. I received no reply. It's up to scientists to grow a pair and criticize any research they deem as bogus, not me.

I need to clarify that I am not a scientist and social media reports regarding TIV activities are just that, unverified information. As for the well-documented TIV road antics, I still believe those are self-fulfilling and Mother Nature / Darwin / Peterbuilt will eventually chime in. People are certainly free to chase as they want, as long as they don't endanger me or first responders. Blocking my own escape route with the TIV would be a serious mistake.

I also remind everyone that the majority of so-called "YouTube" chasers behave in a responsible manner and contribute to public awareness and often assist at disaster sites.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Those new 8 in deep holes will let water in. The next few months' rainfall will first cause erosion underneath and then water will freeze and break the pavement next winter. By next spring these will be full blown potholes.

Unless they get repaired by the county/state.

I think it breaks the "leave no trace" mentality a big part of the chaser community tries to value. Is it a big deal? I don't know really, but I'd also tend to agree with the principle that the burden of fixing the road should not be placed on the local taxpayers.


This does not take away the fact that the footage is incredible and the data gathered seems significant.

There will be more data about the possible potholes than any research Reed will do. You folks that think Reed is actually doing any research definitely need to pull your head from the sand.

 

[Jason N]

I want a passive millimetric wave camera atop that thing—like this

VūSystems - VuSystems – Clear to Land

VuSystems’ technology enables pilots to see through fog, clouds, rain and smog and land in low visibility conditions.

www.vusystems.com

Passive millimeter wave technology keeps the skies safe

From OE Reports Number 196 - April 2000

amp.spie.org

https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/67031934/62.37399820210504-26143-vqjfvr-libre.pdf?1620458721=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DA_passive_millimeter_wave_camera_for_air.pdf&Expires=1684121250&Signature=Hd4b8jL1qhGZ-7S6FLk6O7aj0Dglo0Lz-58o0YDSkpnntn6Kz4Gh4QW5eAALVH5tiqt10AZ62lTTe9zHpjLCRJ7qL9feSCoEE6y1yeM6nimeStQnRN2EO3WQ1QPBFrabtua4UyMr~KBe0ckGF7HYUpNfxrPDOBX8HWMK3SSNd9TG9RKRdlat9ITmXDp8OonBJarn520rOomugQ3H18jN8w6notDHBCa~awjLlQIBaWhzaesbCff-BARzpk2JItMue4J9X7aRmzp30nJBZ~I~03VAYFohMVHIeCLoda~6lyuw1s-lq9jTxSolXsoB~NDHQveGnTyFBs3hKE3ibC2ROw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

That I know of—no chaser has used this or FLIR—in stormchasing.

The FLIR might be a way of looking at heat…debris scraping, etc.

I have, and it's not as helpful as you might think. There are a few pro's but more con's in what the microbolometers sensing/resolution and FR capability is. For storms themselves, commercial FLIR's are generally limited in resolution, zoom, and for the most part unable to distinguish cloud from similar ground and background radiation (there are exceptions to the rule, but not many unless you have Dept., Agency, or DoD budget to do so). There are some environments where they could be helpful in terms of heat sources from transformer pops and or fires and post damage assessment or personnel recovery, however. I've also chased with NVG's, and they can be more helpful, but if you don't have the training to use them effectively or drive with them (I have), you're probably going to die and I don't mean to scare anyone, that's just legit. it enters a territory with your eye/brain is doing things that when combined with speed and total loss of peripheral image not to mention depth perception, the juice is not worth the squeeze in most cases. What they can provide is a glimpse into the nocturnal stationary observation that can dramatically improve a site picture in between lightning flashes or bursts of power flashing. but like either of those options, you have to be close in, usually inside of a mile for it to really register which adds additional complication.

 

[JF Massicotte]

There will be more data about the possible potholes than any research Reed will do. You folks that think Reed is actually doing any research definitely need to pull your head from the sand.

I might have expressed myself incorrectly, the point of my post was more about the fact that the spike aren't so harmless that is looks and the damage it can do to the road can be significant.

I did not see/care about the data, but the footage was great and entertaining.

 

[Jeff Wright]

I have, and it's not as helpful as you might think.

I would have thought you could see into the supercell a bit…

 

[Aaron Pyzik]

Just throwing my two cents out...

The pressure data collected by Reed Timmer from the Spalding, NE tornado is largely, well, not great. At least scientifically. The pressure data was collected from inside a sealed vehicle. This clearly inhibits the both quality and integrity of the data that was collected.

If you want some peer-reviewed studies to back this; see this presentation from Dahl et al. where he explains that singular point observations are not of incredible use or quality, as it doesn't give a comprehensive view of what process is occurring. Additionally, the study finds that with how fast things are occurring in a tornado, even with a sensor that is high res, both temporal/spatial, it would still not be able to resolve the details of the intense structure of the tornado.

The data will still help to quantify the findings of Tim Samaras a while ago, but it will likely not bring anything new to the table.

The best thing that came from this intercept in my opinion was the video collected from inside of the Dominator while it was intercepting. It will allow us to visually resolve what processes can visually be observed from inside a tornado. There has been really only one other intercept that has been able to prove that, the intercept itself being 6/5/2009 during the Goshen County, WY EF-2 tornado, as intercepted by the TIV team, captured on IMAX.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Just throwing my two cents out

The best thing that came from this intercept in my opinion was the video collected from inside of the Dominator while it was intercepting. It will allow us to visually resolve what processes can visually be observed from inside a tornado. There has been really only one other intercept that has been able to prove that, the intercept itself being 6/5/2009 during the Goshen County, WY EF-2 tornado, as intercepted by the TIV team, captured on IMAX.

Yes, but there are plenty of remote cams that have captured amazing footage from inside tornadoes, without risking human life or injury. I agree it's exciting to watch as a chaser, but I really don't want to see anyone hurt or injured. The entertainment value is undeniable, as is the profit potential. The only problem is human / business nature, where you will need increasingly insane performances to stay at the top. If you are dead, you cannot "never stop chasing." I hope Reed realizes this and at some point in life and finds other ways to do equally entertaining / crazy things w/o extreme risk.

 

[JF Massicotte]

The "research" purpose is a good selling pitch similar to the "saving lives" one. Enough of the mass will buy this for chasers to successfully keep these claim alive for decades.

Also, I think it's human nature to find a purpose to what we do, and people go ahead with the simplest they can find.

 

[Aaron Pyzik]

Yes, but there are plenty of remote cams that have captured amazing footage from inside tornadoes, without risking human life or injury. I agree it's exciting to watch as a chaser, but I really don't want to see anyone hurt or injured. The entertainment value is undeniable, as is the profit potential. The only problem is human / business nature, where you will need increasingly insane performances to stay at the top. If you are dead, you cannot "never stop chasing." I hope Reed realizes this and at some point in life and finds other ways to do equally entertaining / crazy things w/o extreme risk.

I agree with everything you just said, there is absolutely better means to obtain footage from inside a tornado and such.

Massicotte also brought up another good point about the "research" claims. Lots of Timmer's "research" has been very gimmicky. He has had money poured into projects by his patrons, who in return, get "data" that is diminishing. An example of this is the parachute probes he tried, the RC plane, and the rocket that he shot into a tornado in the Linwood tornado in 2019. The rocket merely provided GPS data that basically confirmed what we already knew.

Bottom line, he promotes gimmick science that is funded by his patrons which has only led to diminishing returns and analysis. It doesn't help that he has such a cult fanbase, that is quick to insult those who critique him, whether it be criticizing him in a way that questions his scientific method, or simply his ethics. He does not have a good impact on this generation of chasers, and the future generations, by promoting this gimmick research and "zero-meter" culture. Ultimately, Darwin will take its course if chasers do not change and do not start questioning their idols.

 

[Jeff Wright]

He could still use it as a command platform for a drone swarm fitted with smoke-bombs maybe.

There have been crazier stunts…T-28s, Colgate’s flights…

Scientists Want to Fly an Armored Warplane into Hailstorms

Hail causes most thunderstorm-related damage and could become more common with warming

www.scientificamerican.com

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19800006382/downloads/19800006382.pdf

T-28 Storm Penetrating Aircraft

Posts about T-28 Storm Penetrating Aircraft written by ZTResearch

ztresearch.blog

 

[Jeff Duda]

Yes, but there are plenty of remote cams that have captured amazing footage from inside tornadoes.

There are??? Care to post some examples? Because I'm not aware of many.

 

[Warren Faidley]

One of many that can be easily searched out. And unlike the TIV, many of these have structures or debris in the mix for those seeking some type of engineering science.

 

[Jeff Duda]

One of many that can be easily searched out. And unlike the TIV, many of these have structures or debris in the mix for those seeking some type of engineering science.

That was cool. I had not seen that before! I'll see what I can dig up.

 

[gdlewen]

* snip *
One of many that can be easily searched out. And unlike the TIV, many of these have structures or debris in the mix for those seeking some type of engineering science.

I think it's important that observations like this be made known to the wider scientific community, but unless they are leveraged for some kind of scholarly research (for want of a better word), they remain--in my opinion--"just cool videos".

I remember the first time I saw one of Fujita's photogrammetric analyses of tornado velocities (an example by Forbes is given below.) Imagine the work that was required to manually reduce the video record to actual wind velocities. Without someone there with a camera there would have been no "photogrammetric analysis" to conduct.

Example: The contrast is reduced in this photocopy, but in the original the effect of seeing all those vectors superimposed on the tornado image was striking at the time. (from Forbes, G. S., Photogrammetric Characteristics of the Parker Tornado of April 3, 1974, Proceedings of the Symposium on Tornadoes, 1977.)

 

[Jamie H]

I remember the first time I saw one of Fujita's photogrammetric analyses of tornado velocities (an example by Forbes is given below.) Imagine the work that was required to manually reduce the video record to actual wind velocities. Without someone there with a camera there would have been no "photogrammetric analysis" to conduct.

I'm currently reading Mark Levine's F5, and he has a section on Fujita. After the 1957 Fargo tornado, he collected 150 photographs and five super eight films from residents, and, to quote from the book, he "followed the tornado's path on the ground, choosing fifty-three locations from which pictures had been taken to determine the angles at which the tornado had been viewed and the distance of the photographer fom the storm. He corrected for variation in the lenses of the different cameras and for the effects of camera movement. He rephotographed the prints in order to establish uniform scale and perspective, and triangulated measurements taken from multiple positions in order to construct a three-dimensional model of the storm. When he finished, he had pieced together, frame by frame, a short and comprehensive disasrer film that told the story of the onsent and development of a tornado."

That took him two years alone!