through the Fifth Framework Programme
| INCA | funded by the European Community
through the Fifth Framework Programme |
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This page shows a day
by day report on activities and progress of the INCA campaign in Prestwick.
Please click on a date to get the relevant report.
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The installation of the DLR equipment has been been done on Thursday and Friday last week, and the installation of the other instrumentation starts today. All equipment has arrived at Oberpfaffenhofen in time, therefore the work proceeds well.
The integration work continues without major problems or difficulties.
The AWI MARL-Team as well as Reinhold Busen arrive at Prestwick for
final preparations and for the setup of the MARL system.
Brief report received from Johan Ström:
"The Testflight went well and we are now in the process of packing
for transport to Prestwick.
The Falcon made about a 2 h flight over the Alps. The flight was conducted
almost entirely inside
cloud up to FL 410, ambient temperature -68C. Regions of high crystal
number densities probably generated by lee-waves was observed. The
flight
when so well that we can include the data to our data base although
it was
a test flight.
Everything worked ok besides the deicing on the 2D probe and same sampling
problems on the wing-mounted PCASP."
Preparations in Prestwick proceed quite good. Phone and Fax are installed
at the office, Internet will be be set up next Monday. The hangar is ready
to host the aircraft, and the basic logistical supply is settled.
The MARL containers are expected to arrive on Friday.
The PCASP problem on the Falcon was solved today in the morning, and
the 2d deicing will be fixed in Prestwick. Hence, we should shortly after
the arrival of the Falcon (about Monday noon) be ready for mission flights.
The two containers for Prestwick left Oberpfaffenhofen in the late
afternoon and are expected to arrive at Prestwick airport on Sunday morning.
The AWI LIDAR made the first measurements of cirrus over Prestwick today.
Reinhold Busen continued with preparations, which involves thousand and
one things, before all the groups arrive.
The INCA team receives great support by the local people in Prestwick
and everyone is very helpful and service minded.
The calm period before the storm. Some final preparations before the truck with the equipment arrives tomorrow.
The truck carrying the containers arrived well in time at 2 p.m. Unloading
and unpacking went smooth.
The French groups arrived in the late afternoon.
The Falcon arrived on schedule today at 11.30 local time and was pulled
into the Polar Air hangar. Presently it is the only aircraft in and it
looks pretty small compared to the giant hangar size. The last colleagues
have arrived, too, and the INCA team is complete now. The crew, Johan Ström
and Reinhold Busen had a briefing at the Air Traffic Control Center in
the afternoon and got a short tour through the control facilities. Everybody
has got the ID card allowing for working at the hangar.
For Tuesday no flight is planned, the day will be used to get everything
working and to check the instrumentation on the aircraft.
The power connector for the Falcon ground power unit was installed in the hangar and was operational at noon. All instrumetns were checked and found to be in excellent condition for a first flight at Wednesday. The weather briefing confirmed a good situation for a first mission in the Northern part of Scotland.
The flight was confirmed in the morning according to actual satellite pictures and numerical forecast data. Calibration work continued and the Falcon took off shortly after 13:00 UTC for the first mission. The flight lasted about 3 hours, a mission report is available in the flight log section. The cooperation with ATC was extremely good both for crew in the air and for the team filming the radar screen at the control center.
The day was used for data evaluation and maintenance work. One wheel
of the Falcon has been replaced, and the instruments were calibrated after
yesterdays flight. The data have been checked and quicklooks were presented
and discussed in the afternoon meeting. These quicklook data agree quite
well and the data set is complete.
For tomorrow an afternoon flight is planned. The target area will be
a cloud band expected east of Scotland over the North sea.
Todays flight wwas confirmed in the morning and flight preparations
started as usual. The take off was slightly delayed due to a high work
load of the airport's fueling department.
The flight was performed as planned with some variations due to the
cloud fields found in the target area. Both areas with clouds and with
already dissolved clouds were examined. All instruments performed well.
Day off for the flight crew and for most of the scientists
Today the third mission flight was performed, patchy and dissolving cirrus was investigated over Northern Scotland. The final descent was done in the vicinity of Prestwick Airport to compare with the LIDAR, however low clouds limited the LIDAR observations. All instruments on the Falcon worked well, data will be processed tomorrow. No flight is planned for Monday.
Calibration and maintenance work was performed during the day. The afternoon meeting was dedicated to discussions on results from the previous flights. A series of two flights is planned for tomorrow.
Today two flights were performed, one in the morning with a target area north of Ireland, and a second flight in the afternoon for probing the same air mass in the north east of Scotland. The flights were performed successfully, the instruments performed well.
After the two flights of yesterday (see Flight Logs) the team was busy with either checking the instruments or with evaluating the data obtained. Some colleagues also took a few hours off for some relaxing sightseeing. For tomorrow no flight is planned, the arrival of the replacement break for the aircraft is expected.
The brake was replaced today on the Falcon, subsequent tests went well,
therefore there are no restrictions regarding the aircraft operation. Instrument
maintenance showed some minor problems, which are basically solved. In
the afternoon data meeting the flights from Tuesday were reviewed. From
trajectory analyses it is evident, that the Langrangian experiment was
successful, the same air probed in the first flight was met in the afternoon
flight, at least at one of the flight levels.
For tomorrow an cirrus field approaching from the west will be investigated.
As low cloud are expected to arrive later in the day, a comparison with
the Lidar is planned with a flight in the vicinity of Prestwick.
Todays flight was performed as planned with a takeoff at 10:00 UTC.
High level cirrus clouds and contrails of diffent age were found during
the flight. Unfortunately on the the LIDAR site the sky was covered by
lower clouds most of the time, only for some short time periods cirrus
measurements were possible.
Saturday is off for the flight crew, data evaluation and instrument
maintenance will continue.
Data evaluation aof yesterdays flight was mostly completed. The spare
part for the broken NO channel was received in late Friday afternoon and
immediately installed, today's instrument check confirmed that the instrument
is working perfect again.
Saturday afternoon was reserved for watching the world chamion qualification
sollcer games.
A check of the weather situation was done in the morning and a short briefing was held with the decision, not to perform a scientific flight today and tomorrow (Monday). From todays forecast a flight is planned for Tuesday with a target area south of Britain. High reaching and relatively cold cirrus clouds are expected to show up there. The flight planning will be refined tomorrow.
Today Georgios Amanatidis (CEC), Otto Schrems (AWI) and Ulrich Schumann
(DLR) were visiting the INCA team in Prestwick. Heinz Finkenzeller (DLR)
was also in for a short visit. In the morning the Falcon was visited in
the hangar, the aircraft performance and the instrumentation were outlined
by the flight crew and the scientists. After lunch a tour through the Scottish
and Oceanic Control Center was organized, followed by a data presentation
covering the flights performed so far.
Roland Welser, one of the pilots, got ill and was replaced by Markus
Scherdel, who arrived in the late evening.
Two flights were planned for Tuesday with target areas in Oceanic airspace
(out of radar control), but due to strong ATC restrictions they were finally
cancelled in the late evening. A new flight plan will be released on Tuesday
morning.
A huge low pressure system over Britain is supposed to transport air from the European continent to Northern Scotland. Therefore a flight was planned for the late afternoon, to get also some measuring time in the darkness. The flight ws performed as planned, cirrus was found up to 33,000 ft altitude. For Wednesday no flight is scheduled.
Today work on the Falcon started later due to some aircraft movement activities in the hangar. The instruments were checked and calibrated, all systems are in very good shape. For Thursday two flights are planned, one in the vicinity of the LIDAR, the second north-east of Scotland heading for a cirrus fields. The flights are scheduled to catch a total of 3 satellite overpasses. These two missions will be the final ones, the Falcon is returning to Oberpfaffenhofen on Friday.
Today the final two missions were flown. The first one was in the vicinity of Prestwick airport for some intercomparison with the LIDAR system on the ground. Unfortunately only short sequences could be measured by the LIDAR due to low level cloudiness. Therefore the second half of the mission was used to investigate a wave cloud north of Glasgow. The second flight was made in the afternoon, a cloud field east of the Shetland Islands was probed mainly. After return work on the Falcon started to remove part of the instrumetnation before the ferry flight back to Oberpfaffenhofen.
In the morning preparations for the ferry flight were finish. A picture of the whole team was taken in front of the aircraft and the campaign was formally closed by Johan Ström. The Falcon left at about 10:45 LT and landed safely in Oberpfaffenhofen. Packing of the freight started, the first percels will be picked up today. The DLR containers will be prepared tomorrow and picked up in the afternoon.
This closes the INCA Journal for the Prestwick campaign.