Search

Research Instruments

HIPPO III: Research Flight 08 - American Samoa to Hawaii

April 10, 2010

5 dips were performed during Research Flight 08 from American Samoa to Hawaii, sampling the atmosphere at altitudes as low as 500' above the ocean surface to upwards of 45,000', covering 2,600 miles

Check out all of the forward looking camera images in the HIPPO III Field Catalog, in the Research Products section. Feel free to poke around the field catalog, as there is an amazing amount of information such as pre-flight weather discussions.

The HIPPO Project Manager, Pavel Romashkin, reported seeing a whale on a low dip just after they crossed the equator at 4° north! This was the first time that they have seen a whale during a HIPPO campaign, and hope that it is not their last!

On another note, the pilots planned the approach into Kona so that, in descent, the GV flew in a spiral around the northeast side of Hawaii, descending through the air that the Mauna Loa observatory would sample an hour later. The island was covered by clouds on the East and by vog (volcanic fog, a typical occurrence for Kona) on the west, and they could see the steam rising from the place where lava flows into the ocean, forming a long band of clouds extending for miles downwind.

Publication or Paper Evaluation of methods for gravity wave extraction from middle-atmospheric lidar temperature measurements

Work Schedule

HIPPO Global Phase I schedule of daily activities

No further activity is planned for the weekend of Feb. 1; the rest of the equipment will be uninstalled the following week. This conclides the field part of HIPPO Global Phase I.

Saturday Jan. 31: Partial payload removal will take place. Racks and seats will be removed from the right side of the cabin to allow removal of the QCLS rack. No power or user access will be provided. QCLS and CO2 racks will be shipped to Harvard and the Harvard team will depart Jeffco.

Friday Jan. 30: RF11 from San Jose to Jeffco. Power and access start at 0800, estimated departure time is 1000 local. If by any chance MEDUSA flasks will appear at the hangar by 0800, we will delay the departure by an hour to replace them and prepare for flight. Estimated flight duration is 7 hours. Crew departs from Ramada at 0745 on a shuttle. We have received a research permit from Mexico; however it is not clear if this makes a difference at this time with regard to our ability to do dips in the MX airspace because there is no time to coordinate dips with the ATC. We hope to do at least two dips and a missed approach at Ponca City but the actual flight will depend on the ATC which was entirely uncooperative on the last flight.

Thursday Jan. 29: Maintenance day in MROC. We meet in the lobby of Ramada at 0845 to depart to the GV. Power and access will be provided from 0900 until the maintenance tasks are completed. There will be a work space and internet access at the hangar so if you are finished with maintenance you can work on the data and e-mail from there. We will not obtain rental cars this time and will use Ramada's shuttle to move back and forth between the hangar and the hotel. Please don't forget items necessary for maintenance. At 10 am there will be a visit from the US Ambassador and CR Minister of Science and Technology; at 12 am there will be a web conference NSF news brief.

Wednesday Jan. 28: RF10 from Easter Island to San Jose, Costa Rica. Departre is at 1230, power on and access at 0930 in case of a possible early departure. Meeting in the hotel lobby ready to go at 0900. Check out from the hotel (a task by itself, as it turned out) was completed the night before.

Tuesday Jan. 27: Maintenance day in Easter Island.

Monday Jan. 26: Arrival from Tahiti is a night flight. Possible access to the GV after 4 pm local time; most likely no access to the GV with a maintenance day following.

Sunday Jan. 25: RF09 from Tahiti to Easter Island. Take-off at 1630 local, departure from the hotel at 1230, power and access at 1300 local. Estimated duration 6.5 hours. ETA 0345 local time.

Saturday Jan. 24: Hard down day in Tahiti. No power or access to the GV.

Friday Jan. 23 U.S. time (Saturday Jan. 24 NZ time): RF08 from Christchurch to Papeete, Tahiti. Assembly in the lobby of Hotel Commodore is at 0730; please check out and be ready to go by 0745. Power and access will start at 0800. Takeoff is at 1000. Coordinate rental car returns with Pavel and Kurt who will give us a ride back from the terminal. No customs or immigration procedures will be necessary.

Thursday Jan. 22 U.S. time (Friday Jan. 23 NZ time): Maintenance day, power and access form 1400 to 1600 with power provided as necessary on GPU. In the morning Brigitte will be departing for the hangar at 0900 to oversee shipping, so people interested in shipping their cargo can join her.

Wednesday Jan. 21 U.S. time (Thursday Jan. 22 NZ time): Maintenance day, power and access form 0800 to 1600 with power provided as necessary on GPU.

Tuesday Jan. 20 U.S. time (Wednesday Jan. 21 NZ time): Confirmed RF07 from Christchurch to 67S, aka Polar Flight. Takeoff 1000 local, with 0730 departure from the hotel, 0800 power and access. Expected flight duration 8 hours. Flight will take off, overfly Lauder with a dip over it and head south towards 175W 67S doing dips from 28,000 to 1,000 feet. At the southernmost point the aircraft will climb to max altitude (43,000 ft) and return collecting high altitude data, possibly reaching 45,000 ft or higher.

Monday Jan. 19 U.S. time (Tuesday Jan. 20 NZ time): Maintenance day, power and access as needed from 0800 to 1600. Gather at 0730 in the lobby of Hotel Commodore to carpool to the USAP hangar to start working on the GV. Plan to carry out the tasks that do not require power first (flask replacement, gas filling). Then, power will be provided as needed using a ground power unit. It is best to minimize its use; we are not sure how reliably the GPU will operate if run for many hours at a time (RAF own GPUs are specially made for this, most other are not so beware of possible power failure; it is not planned but may happen).

Sunday Jan. 18 U.S. time (Monday Jan. 19 NZ time): RF06 from Pago-Pago, Am. Samoa to Christchurch, NZ. Estimated take-off time 0900 local. ETA in Christchurch 1600 local.

Saturday Jan. 17: Hard down day. Science crew will perform flask preparation without power either from 0800 to 0930 or from 1600 to 1700 and take the rest of the day off. Aircraft will be available for visiting upon arrangement with Pavel at 0930. A visit to the NOAA observatory courtesy of Mark Cunningham will start after the tour of the GV and will take about 4.5 hours, including a 3 hour round trip. (The tour was a great success, we ended up showing the inside and outside of the GV and explaining what we are doing to over 40 people who were very interested and appreciative of the opportunity to get familiar with the project).

Friday Jan. 16: RF05 from Honolulu HI to Pago-Pago, Am. Samoa. Power and access at 0815, takeoff at 1000 Hawaii time. ETA in Pago-Pago 1700 local time. GV crew will meet at 0730 in the Hyatt lobby, checked out and ready to go to the airport.

Thursday Jan. 15: Maintenance day, power and access from 0815 till 1100 then again from 1530 till 1630, as necessary for completing the preparation for flight. People staying at Hayatt will gather in the lobby at 0730 for departure to the airport.

Wednesday Jan. 14: RF04 from Anchorage, AK to Honolulu, Hawaii, with a 0900 take-off. The snowfall has stopped for now and if the weather is totally clear we will pull out at 0645 for a normal 2 hour pre-flight starting at 0700. In case of freezing rain and snow or if it is just about to start, we plan to start instrument warm-up in the hangar at 0645. We will load up the luggage while in the hangar if we can, so please bring your bags out around 0700. At 0815 we will pull the GV out and if there is precipitation, we will immediately fuel and taxi as soon as the fueling is finished. This is the only way for us to avoid accumulating snow on the airplane, which would prevent us from taking off. The necessary instrument pre-flight would have to take place during taxi and first hour of flight, and we do understand that this can result in data loss or degradation. If there is no precipitation however, we will hold on the ramp as long as necessary (1 hour) to allow proper pre-flight procedures to be completed.

Tuesday Jan. 13: Maintenance day, power and access to the GV from 0800 to 1600 local time.

Monday Jan. 12 : RF03 from Anchorage towards the North Pole. There is a chance of snow in the morning. If there is substantial snowfall, the preflight will be split into 1.5 hours in the hangar starting at 0645, then 30-45 min on the ramp from 0830 till 0900-0915 while the aircraft is being fueled and preflight is completed. The reason for this is, if there is accumulating snow on the wings, the aircraft must be de-iced before it can fly, which is a problem for instrumentation. If there is no snowfall, there will be standard pre-flight on the ramp from 0700 to 0900 (take-off time). The decision will be made at 0630 at the FIFO.

Sunday Jan. 11: Maintenance day, power and access to the GV from 0800 to 1600 local time.

Saturday Jan. 10: Aircraft is inside the hangar at the Anchorafe FAA FIFO. Hard down day, no power or access to the GV.

Friday Jan. 9: RF02 from Billings MT to Anchorage AK. Planned t/o 1200 MST, potentially slipping to 1300 MST, estimated duration 8 hours. Power and access at 1000 MST. Repairs of main cabin door start at 0700.

HIPPO III: Research Flight 07 - New Zealand to American Samoaoa

April 8, 2010

The start of Research Flight 07 marks the beginning of the return flight back towards the North Pole, and then home to Colorado. The flight was 2300 miles and they were able to complete 5 dips along the way.

All instruments were up and operational, as you can see in the HIPPO III Field Catalog Instrument Status Report. If you want to learn more about the various instruments, there is wonderful information on this website in the Research Instruments section.

HIPPO III: Research Flight 06 - Southern Polar Region

April 5, 2010

The HIPPO study was able to reach the Antarctic Circle (66° south) during the flight to the southern polar regions, and back to Christchurch, NZ which is the farthest south that the project has been able to study the atmosphere.

The reason that the flight track image above looks like the NSF/NCAR GV only went a short distance away from New Zealand is that the satellite coverage of Google Earth in the southern and northern polar regions is not the best. The track in the image above is the outbound (yellow) and the last hour of the inbound (red) flight linked by a short yellow vertical line.

During the inbound flight, the GV did a fly-over at New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmosphere (NIWA) Lauder Reaserch Station, to help provide them with a complete vertical profile of the atmosphere from the ground to the altitude that the GV was flying. So while the GV passed overhead, the ground station took measurements as well, which can collectively provide a complete vertical profile to altitudes that can not be achieved by the ground instruments

Sea Ice Edge Near Antarctic Circle	Sea Ice Edge Near Antarctic Circle	Cloud Uniformity
Three Phases of Water : Gas, Liquid, Solid	GV Glory!	Banking around to the north at 67° south
Real-time flight track from aircraft monitor		Low Pass of NIWA's Lauder Research Station

VIDEO: RF 06 Forward Looking Camera

HIPPO III: Research Flight 05 - American Samoa to NewZealand

April 2, 2010

Research Flight 05 from Pago Pago, American Samoa to Christchurch, New Zealand completed 5 dips over their 7 hour flight. During the flight they crossed the International Date Line, so they actaully landed in Christchurch on April 4.

Check out all of the forward looking camera images from RF05 in the HIPPO III Field Catalog. Be sure to browse around it and explore some of the other areas such as Daily Reports, Mission notes.

VIDEO: RF 05 Forward Looking Camera

HIPPO III: Research Flight 04 - Hawaii to American Samoa

March 31, 2010

RF04 to Samoa was a success!

The NSF/NCAR GV received clearance to climb to 41,000 ft near 5 degrees N, allowing the science team to be the first in HIPPO to get insight into the atmospheric cross section near the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The conversion zone itself was located South of 5Â°N, and the GV descended right through the middle of it. Turbulence was minimal, and the area did not look "tropical" as people are used to seeing the tropics: it was overcast, with tall clouds everywhere and three to four layered decks of clouds, with overshooting convective towers and anvils at 50,000 feet and above, stretching for many miles. The overcast weather changed to the "tropical" one only by 4°S.

Arriving in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the GV met 89°F weather and high humidity, causing the air conditionning vents in the airplane to start fogging once the doors were open. Moisture immediately condensed on all items taken outside, including people. Their hands were cold, from being in the air conditioned cabin, and water condensed on the skin when they walked out on the ramp!

The flight path consisted of 4 dips over the open ocean and traveled approximately 2540 miles (2207 nautical miles or 4087 km).

Bye, bye: Hawaii!	The GV flying over the Equator in real-time on Google Earth!	Intertropical Convergence Zone
Intertropical Convergence Zone	Clouds in the Southern Hemisphere	Hello: American Samoa!
American Samoa	Landing in American Samoa	The ENTIRE Team in Pago Pago, American Samoa

VIDEO: RF04 Forward Looking Camera

Aerosol Data

Instructions on accessing aerosol data in the GV files

Particle data

The standard netCDF GV data files that are archived for the project contain both concentration and particle size distribution information from the RAF UHSAS probe (and from CDP and 2D-C, when flown). The probe as operated on HIPPO-1 and HIPPO-2 was not being initialized properly, which caused incorrect mapping of gain stages. This forced RAF to average across 5 bins for the two gain stage overlaps for HIPPO-1. For HIPPO-2 the solution is TBD as the gain stage problem has apparently become worse; further data QC will be conducted.

In order to view concentration data in .nc files, Aeros or any other software capable of viewing time series data in netCDF files can be used.

In order to view size distribution data in .nc files, ncpp should be used. The program will allow to select any or all of the particle probes available in the file and view the data either as particle size distribution or as raw counts:

2D image data

On some HIPPO deployments (HIPPO-2 was first), 2D-C probe was flown. This probe produces both calculated size distributions and 2D images. To acces images, 2D data have to be extracted from the raw data files and provided as a separate data product. To view the images, use xpms2d software available from the EOL download center. Example of the images is below.

HIPPO III Research Flight 03 - Alaska to Hawaii

March 29, 2010

The NSF/NCAR GV took off from the Anchorage Airport and headed west to Cold Bay, where they did a missed approach at the Cold Bay Airport, a main commercial center of the Aleutian Islands. From there, they banked around to the south and headed for Hawaii, and warmer weather. Along the way they did 7 dips (see Google earth flight track in image above) reaching altitudes of just over 500 feet above the ocean surface to heights of 41,000 feet.

Appraoching Cold Bay, AK	Cold Bay, AK	Cold Bay, AK
Low dip over Pacific Ocean	HIPPO crew taking time to stretch!	Appraoching the Big Island, HI
Clouds over Hawaii	Mauna Loa (background) Mona Kea (foreground), HI	Warm weather!
	Hawaiian Coast