NSF Research Aircraft

The National Science Foundation (NSF) presently supports a fleet of four research aircraft. With their various payloads, altitude, endurance and range capabilities, these airplanes match the observational challenges inherent to environmental research and serve the science community in understanding and predicting the earth system.

Two of the NSF research airplanes, the GV and the C-130Q are housed and managed at the Research Aviation Facility (RAF) located at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC, formerly Jefferson County Airport, [JeffCo]). EOL is also involved in the request process for the University of Wyoming King Air, managed by the University of Wyoming, the request process for the Twin Otter managed by CIRPAS as well as ELDORA radar operations on the Naval Research Lab P-3, which is managed by the U.S. Navy.

Please note that several other US federal agencies operate research aircraft, which are available for atmospheric studies.  For a complete listing of these facilities, please visit the Facilities Assessment Database. While those aircraft are not part of the NSF aircraft fleet, NSF will consider supporting flight hours on these aircraft in support of NSF-funded research. For more information, contact Dr. James Huning (jhuning@nsf.gov) at NSF.