Articles for "Atmospheric research"

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Aeronautics | 01. September 2016 | posted by Fabian Locher

A day in the tropical sky

Flugplatz Togo
Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0)
The apron of the hangar – the Falcon is ready for more measurements

It is the middle of the night on the coast of West Africa. A team of sleepy aircraft technicians and atmospheric researchers exit the hotel lobby. The humidity hits them like a brick wall – it is already 25 degrees Celsius outside. Their departure for Gnassingbé Eyadéma Airport is scheduled at four AM sharp. The first motorcycles of the day thunder past the walls of the hotel complex. Today’s take-off is set for 09:30. But the chauffeurs are late – again.

At 04:30, two cars drive up along the beach promenade through the still quiet streets of Lomé, the capital city of Togo.

Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0)
En route to the hangar via Boulevard Du Mono.

Twenty minutes later, the group reaches their destination – a small hangar next to the international airport. Waiting for them, ready for use, is the Falcon 20E , a very reliable member of DLR’s fleet of research aircraft. read more

Aeronautics | 29. May 2015

WindVal: Petta reddast

Betanken der Falcon vor dem Start
Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0)
Falcon ready for the jet stream flight, in the background is the NASA DC-8

In Iceland you hear one phrase very often: 'petta reddast', which can be translated as "it will all work out okay". With that in mind, we started planning the flight to have a closer look at strong changes in the horizontal and vertical gradients of the wind speeds in the atmosphere, which is one of the key objectives of the ADM-Aeolus WindVal campaign.

When operating from Iceland, the ideal target region for such an endeavour is in or near a jet stream (fast flowing current in the atmosphere with a meandering shape) over the North Atlantic that is within range of the aircraft. The situation on Friday 15 May 2015 offered a great opportunity to address this aim and coordinate with the NASA DC-8 to observe strong jet stream winds. We have total of four wind lidar systems on the two aircraft, the DC-8 and DLR’s Falcon. read more