Re­search air­craft

The Falcon takes off on its mission

The Fal­con takes off on its mis­sion

March 17, 2021  The Fal­con flights help to bet­ter anal­yse the cur­rent­ly large­ly clean at­mo­sphere, which is on­ly slight­ly pol­lut­ed with emis­sions from in­dus­try and trans­port, in­clud­ing avi­a­tion. This gives re­searchers a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to bet­ter un­der­stand the ef­fects of in­creased emis­sions pri­or to the Coro­n­avirus lock­down.


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Image 1/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Measurement aircraft Falcon 20E D-CMET

Mea­sure­ment air­craft Fal­con 20E D-CMET

November 29, 2021  The Fal­con 20E, equipped with mul­ti­ple in­stru­ments, fol­lowed the Air­bus A350 in April this year. Now, in Novem­ber, the mea­sure­ment flights over the Mediter­ranean Sea have been re­sumed.


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Image 2/26, Credit: © Airbus/S. Ramadier
Falcon 20E D-CMET measurement aircraft in the A350’s exhaust plume

Fal­con 20E D-CMET mea­sure­ment air­craft in the A350’s ex­haust plume

November 29, 2021  The Fal­con 20E flew to with­in 100 me­tres of the A350 at cruis­ing al­ti­tude. The tur­bu­lence that oc­curs there makes fly­ing this close hard work for the pi­lots.


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Image 3/26, Credit: © Airbus/S. Ramadier
The new DLR 'DO 228' D-CEFD research aircraft

The new DLR 'DO 228' D-CEFD re­search air­craft

November 23, 2021  The 'DO 228' D-CEFD was over­hauled by Atom­ics AeroTec Sys­tems and one of the con­ven­tion­al en­gines will be re­placed with a 600-kilo­watt elec­tric pow­er­train de­vel­oped by MTU Aero En­gines


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Image 4/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
'DO 228' D-CEFD in the hangar next to the DLR Falcon D-CMET

'DO 228' D-CEFD in the hangar next to the DLR Fal­con D-CMET

November 24, 2021  With 10 air­craft and he­li­copters, DLR's Flight Ex­per­i­ments Fa­cil­i­ty op­er­ates the largest fleet of civil­ian re­search air­craft in Eu­rope. The Flight Ex­per­i­ments Fa­cil­i­ty sup­ports in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal users in plan­ning and con­duct­ing their flight ex­per­i­ments. These flight ex­per­i­ments ei­ther use the air­craft as a plat­form for re­search or con­sid­er the air­craft as an ob­ject of re­search.


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Image 5/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
DLR ATRA research aircraft

DLR ATRA re­search air­craft

January 2, 2019  The Air­bus A320-232 D-ATRA, DLR's largest fleet mem­ber, has been in op­er­a­tion since the end of 2008.


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Image 6/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Research aircraft A320 ATRA

Re­search air­craft A320 ATRA

January 2, 2019  DLR’s re­search air­craft A320 ATRA (Ad­vanced Tech­nol­o­gy Re­search Air­craft) is a mod­ern and flex­i­ble flight test­ing plat­form that sets a new bench­mark for fly­ing test beds in Eu­ro­pean aerospace re­search – and not just be­cause of its size.


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Image 7/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Two planes in flight

Joint re­search flights over Ger­many

January 2, 2019  NASA’s ‘air­borne lab­o­ra­to­ry’ flies close be­hind the DLR A320 Ad­vanced Tech­nol­o­gy Re­search Air­craft (ATRA), fly­ing through the Air­bus’ ex­haust plume. On board, sci­en­tists mea­sure the com­po­si­tion of the ex­haust stream and anal­yse the ef­fects of bio­fu­els like HEFA on the for­ma­tion of soot par­ti­cles and ice crys­tals.


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Image 8/26, Credit: DLR/NASA/Friz.
ATRA at low altitude

ATRA at low al­ti­tude over the Magde­burg Cochst­edt Air­port

January 2, 2019  The DLR ATRA re­search air­craft flies at around 15 me­tres above the air­port grounds with its land­ing gear re­tract­ed.


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Image 9/26, Credit: DLR/Marek Kruszewski (CC-BY 3.0).
HALO in a hangar

HA­LO in the hangar at the air­port in Tainan, south­ern Tai­wan

January 2, 2019  HA­LO in the hangar at the air­port in Tainan, south­ern Tai­wan


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Image 10/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
HALO research aircraft in flight

HA­LO re­search air­craft

January 2, 2019  The HA­LO re­search air­craft flies all over the world for at­mo­spher­ic and cli­mate re­search.


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Image 11/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
DLR HALO research aircraft in flight

DLR HA­LO re­search air­craft

January 2, 2019  The HA­LO high-al­ti­tude re­search air­craft (High Al­ti­tude and Long Range Re­search Air­craft): start­ing in late 2008, this mod­i­fied busi­ness jet, a Gulf­stream G 550, will join the DLR air­craft fleet in da­ta-gath­er­ing flights around the globe.


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Image 12/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
HALO research aircraft in a snow-covered landscape

HA­LO re­search air­craft at Kiruna in north­ern Swe­den

January 2, 2019  At the end of Jan­uary 2016, at­mo­spher­ic re­searchers used the High Al­ti­tude Long Range Re­search Air­craft (HA­LO) and the Fal­con 20E re­search air­craft to con­duct co­or­di­nat­ed cli­mate re­search mea­sure­ment flights. For the first time, they suc­ceed­ed in mea­sur­ing grav­i­ty waves and air­glow al­most in their en­tire­ty.


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Image 13/26, Credit: DLR/Andreas Minikin.
DLR research aircraft Falcon

DLR re­search air­craft Fal­con

January 2, 2019  The Fal­con is the on­ly re­search air­craft in Eu­rope that is legal­ly able to fly at high al­ti­tudes and over long dis­tances in vol­canic ash clouds.


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Image 14/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
The Falcon in flight

The Fal­con in flight

December 21, 2018  The Fal­con re­search air­craft ar­rived at DLR in 1976 and has proven its worth in nu­mer­ous sci­en­tif­ic re­search mis­sions and cam­paigns world­wide. Its best-known flights were car­ried out in April 2010, when the erup­tion of the Ice­landic vol­cano Ey­jaf­jal­la­jökull brought large parts of the air traf­fic over Eu­rope to a stand­still. In record time, the Fal­con was con­vert­ed and cer­ti­fied for use over Ice­land, Eng­land and Ger­many. As the on­ly air­craft in the sky, the Fal­con made sev­er­al mea­sure­ment flights.


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Image 15/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Falcon flying at low level

Fal­con fly­ing at low lev­el

January 2, 2019  The Fal­con dur­ing a mea­sure­ment flight in Malaysia.


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Image 16/26, Credit: GEOMAR.
The cabin of the DLR Falcon

In­side the cab­in of the DLR Fal­con

January 2, 2019  DLR re­searchers fo­cus on mea­sure­ments of the bio­fu­el ex­haust emis­sions of soot and sul­phur par­ti­cles, as well as the size and shape of the ice crys­tals in the con­den­sa­tion trails.


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Image 17/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan in flight

Fly­ing au­di­to­ri­um 'Cess­na 208B Grand Car­a­van'

January 2, 2019  The Cess­na C208B Grand Car­a­van (reg­is­tra­tion D-FDLR) was con­vert­ed in­to a fly­ing au­di­to­ri­um by the Ger­man Aerospace Cen­ter's (DLR) Oberp­faf­fen­hofen flight fa­cil­i­ty.


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Image 18/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan in flight

Cess­na 208B Grand Car­a­van in flight

December 21, 2018  The small­est air­craft of DLR's Oberp­faf­fen­hofen flight fa­cil­i­ty is a Cess­na 208B Grand Car­a­van, reg­is­tra­tion D-FDLR. The sin­gle-en­gine tur­bo­prop air­craft is main­ly used by the Ger­man Aerospace Cen­ter (DLR) for re­mote sens­ing. It is es­pe­cial­ly well suit­ed for cam­era flights, such as those with the HRSC (High Res­o­lu­tion Stereo Cam­era), op­er­at­ed by DLR and al­so used in space mis­sions.


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Image 19/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
DO 228-212 research aircraft

DO 228-212 re­search air­craft

January 2, 2019  The DO 228-212 is pri­mar­i­ly used for re­mote sens­ing, but al­so for ma­rine and at­mo­spher­ic re­search.


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Image 20/26, Credit: © DLR. All rights reserved
The DLR research aircraft DO 228-212 CFFU in flight

The DLR re­search air­craft DO 228-212 CF­FU in flight

December 21, 2018  The DLR re­search air­craft has a length of 16.56 me­tres (18.7 feet with nose boom), is 4.86 me­tres in height and has a wingspan of 16.97 me­tres.


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Image 21/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
BO 105 against a scree backdrop

BO 105 against a scree back­drop

January 2, 2019  The Göt­tin­gen-based re­searchers em­ployed a nov­el tech­nique to vi­su­alise the ro­tor blade vor­tices, us­ing the loose scree lit­ter­ing the quar­ry as a back­ground for their mea­sure­ment method.


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Image 22/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
BO 105 flying in the quarry

BO 105 fly­ing in the quar­ry

January 2, 2019  DLR BO 105 re­search he­li­copter in flight above the lake at the base of the quar­ry.


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Image 23/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
ATTAS without its nose boom

AT­TAS on 19 Febru­ary 1985 - with­out its nose boom

January 2, 2019  The pho­to shows the AT­TAS re­search air­craft af­ter its con­ver­sion in Lemw­erder. In Febru­ary 1985, the air­line com­pa­ny MBB (Messer­schmitt-Bolkow-Blohm) con­duct­ed a sec­ond flight with the mod­i­fied air­craft. The fuse­lage had not yet been paint­ed in DLR colours.


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Image 24/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
ATTAS wearing a 'wing glove'

AT­TAS wear­ing a 'wing glove' in 1987

January 2, 2019  This im­age shows AT­TAS with a changed pro­file. In 1987 a por­tion of the right wing was equipped with what is known as 'lam­i­nar glove'. A fi­bre-glass re­in­forced com­pos­ite glove was placed on the orig­i­nal alu­minum struc­ture. DLR re­searchers in­ves­ti­gat­ed whether longer lam­i­nar flow pro­files would be pos­si­ble in com­mer­cial air­craft as well. If so, the re­sis­tance and thus the fu­el con­sump­tion could be re­duced. In­frared cam­eras mea­sured the lam­i­nar-tur­bu­lent bound­ary lay­er tran­si­tion.


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Image 25/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
LFU 205 in flight

LFU 205

January 2, 2019  The air­craft was de­vel­oped joint­ly in the 1960s by DLR and the Le­icht­flugtech­nik-Union (LFU) con­sor­tium. The maid­en flight took place in 1968. The LFU 205 in ser­vice in Brunswick is the pro­to­type of this air­craft and was man­u­fac­tured as a one-off.


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Image 26/26, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) operates the largest civilian fleet of research aircraft and helicopters in Europe. The aircraft are stationed at DLR’s sites in Braunschweig and Oberpfaffenhofen.

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