The last night flight on Friday was followed by a day flight on Sunday and a subsequent, currently ongoing flight today (Monday). The targets of both flights were polar vortex air and trace gas filaments along a tropospheric trough and in the vicinity of the polar vortex edge.
Continue reading Last balloon soundings and one more upcoming local flight
On Tuesday, 24th Sept, the first day flight dedicated to southern hemispheric chemistry was successfully performed. The area of interest was south- and eastward of Rio Grande towards 63°S. There aged and chemically processed air was probed in the polar vortex and in the vicinity of the polar vortex edge. The flight was coordinated with ground-based and balloon-borne ozone measurements on King George Island, Marambio Station in Antarctica and at Ushuaia.
After one day of ground maintenance, preparations for the last night flight in this part of the campaign are currently ongoing.
This series of Campaign Insights is written during the DLR Patagonia Wave Soaring campaign in El Calafate, Argentina in Sep/Oct 2019. The measurement campaign coincides with and supports the SOUTHTRAC campaign in Rio Grande, Argentina. The intention of this article is to give insights into this measurement campaign from the perspective of a student.
It is written by me, Ramona, aerospace master student at the DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IPA).
Continue reading Soaring Campaign Insights 1: Radiosonde launching
Yesterday night, HALO completed the fourth research flight dedicated to mountain waves above the Southern Andes. Prevailing moderate westerly to south-westerly winds triggered mountain waves and the flight crew could report “nice” up- and downward movements of the aircraft shortly after take-off along the first cross mountain section.
Continue reading Surfing on Mountain Waves – Up and Down above the Southern Andes
After sunset on 11th September at 20 p.m. HALO took off from Rio Grande Airport performing the first local research flight. It was the first of six research flights performed during night and mainly focusing on atmospheric gravity waves.
It’s a long journey from Central Europe to „the end of the world”. Most of the SouthTRAC participants have been travelling for up to two days using trains, commercial aircraft and rental cars. It was a three-day journey for HALO…
Continue reading Transfer completed – HALO arrived in Rio Grande
While HALO successfully made its way from Oberpfaffenhofen to Sal and Buenos Aires, lots of activities were going on in the hangar in Rio Grande in preparation for the arrival of HALO and upcoming research flights.
On time at 0700 UTC (9 o’clock local time in Germany) in a cloudy but dry Bavarian morning, HALO took to the skies and headed south-west for its first interim destination Sal on Cape Verde. The flight today, estimated to take 6.5 hours, marks the beginning of the scientific experiments where all instruments are operational. Continue reading HALO set off to Cape Verde
The wave soaring campaign by the DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics, accompanying the SouthTRAC campaign from their base in El Calafate at the base of the Andes, will start these days. The first colleagues from DLR arrived on site, along with the Stemme glider.
Late at night on Thursday scientists tested the 532 nm laser of the ALIMA lidar (light detection and ranging).
The alignment of the laser emitted through a window on top of the aircraft, as well as the telescope that detects the backscattered photons, were adjusted. Continue reading Infinite beam