Supporting the future of airborne research Instrumented aircraft are an important scientific tool, allowing researchers to gather data on the Earth’s surface and atmosphere, yet such facilities are not always available in some countries. The EUFAR2 project helps widen access to airborne research facilities and supports the growth of the environmental science research community, as Philip Brown explains Research aircraft offer rich opportunities for scientists to gather data and gain new insights, yet such aircraft are not always available in all European countries and are typically quite expensive to operate. Established in 2000, the EUFAR programme was designed to widen access to airborne research infrastructure among European scientists, and its scope has since widened further in EUFAR2. “Initially, EUFAR was simply a networking activity, amongst a number of different operators of research aircraft across Europe,” outlines Philip Brown, the scientific coordinator of EUFAR2. Alongside linking aircraft operators with key scientific users, the new contract under which EUFAR2 was funded includes provision for further activities. “The contract also provided us with money to run some joint research activities focussed on improving data quality,” explains Brown. “We can also support transnational access to research aircraft. We can offer flight time for users and user groups, where they don’t normally have access to such facilities in their own country. The overall objective is to broaden access to – and optimize the use of – these expensive facilities.” Trans-national access There are 43 research aircraft advertised on the EUFAR website, of which 17 are open to transnational access for researchers. Remote sensing aircraft like the CASA 212-RS typically carry airborne imaging sensors, operating at both visible
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Group photo in front of DRL’s HALO research aircraft during the 2nd EUFAR2 General Assembly meeting, at DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen (March 2015). Copyright EUFAR. and infrared wavelengths. “These instruments get used a lot for characterising soil and vegetation properties for example, as well as investigating forestry and surface water properties. They can be used for a wide
thing you typically want to do for meteorological purposes is to measure the wind speed and direction – with an aircraft that might be moving at 100 metres per second, you can imagine that is not a trivial process.”
On the FAAM
BAe-146 aircraft we have a range of instruments which are carried under the wing, for sampling atmospheric aerosol particles, and cloud precipitation particles, across a whole range of sizes range of different types of environmental science studies,” says Brown. Other aircraft are more suited to gathering atmospheric data. “They usually measure a broad range of different types of data,” continues Brown. “The UK aircraft for example, which are generally representative, have sensors to measure basic properties like temperature, humidity and static pressure. Another
This process involves combining data from several different sensors on the aircraft, including GPS, an inertial navigation system, and air speed and flow angle sensors. From these measurements researchers can build the full 3-d wind vector, while Brown says further instruments are also available on some aircraft. “For example, on the FAAM BAe-146 aircraft we have a range of instruments which are carried under the
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The ECO-Dimona aircraft operated by University of Edinburgh with underwing pods carrying a range of atmospheric measurement instruments. Copyright: University of Edinburgh. wing, for sampling atmospheric aerosol particles, cloud precipitation particles, across a whole range of sizes. That spans the range from about 0.1 microns up to several millimetres in diameter,” he outlines. These aircraft are available for researchers to use, with flight time awarded after a project proposal has been reviewed and assessed in terms of both its viability and its scientific content. “We can typically support about ten flight hours per approved proposal, and we expect to support somewhere in the region of 35 such projects during our present contract, which runs to the end of January 2018,” says Brown. The process of arranging aircraft access is a significant logistical challenge. It is not efficient to fly an aircraft to a distant location purely for a single research project, so Brown says the project aims to cluster trans-national access activities together with pre-existing research, pointing to the SAVEX-D project as an example. “This was a trans-national access project proposed by a group of scientists from Spain making use of a UK aircraft – FAAM BAe-146 – which was on campaign in the Cape Verde islands around August 2015. They were able to propose a campaign of their own at the same time, to take advantage of the fact that we were going to be there,” he outlines. The SAVEX-D team derived further benefits from sharing access to the aircraft. “We planned to be on the Cape Verde islands for around three weeks. They were able to stay there for essentially that whole period, and therefore use the aircraft in the atmospheric conditions which best suited their scientific objectives, which might not have been possible in a normal campaign,” explains Brown. “A similar clustering of EUFAR flights happened in association with a large international observing campaign called DACCIWA in West Africa using the ATR-42 aircraft from France and the Falcon-20 from DLR in Germany.” The trans-national access users may also have the opportunity to take responsibility
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Illustration of phenomena on the jet stream related to downstream propagation of wave activity and high impact weather (Image credit: John Methven). for a particular area of scientific interest within an overall problem during combined field campaigns. A study by several UK groups a few years ago into dust aerosols in the Sahara region provides a case in point. “The trans-national access user group were able to take responsibility for a particular part of that study, looking specifically at the source regions where dust is lofted into the atmosphere across the whole Sahara region,” says Brown. This helps spread knowledge and also widens the environmental science research base, which is an important part of the project’s overall agenda. “Several countries in Europe don’t have these airborne research facilities independently. So, without programmes like EUFAR2, it would be very difficult for scientists from those countries to get involved in research,” points out Brown. “When they are able to take part through trans-national access, they get full use of the aircraft and essentially training on how to make full use of the facility.” This commitment to widening the research base extends to training the next generation of scientists. Summer schools have been established under EUFAR2 covering particular areas of airborne measurement activity; the SWAMP course in July 2015 focused on airborne remote sensing techniques for example. “Students were introduced to a whole range of techniques, including measurement and calibration techniques. There were also tutorials on processing the data and
Met Office operational global model dust forecast for 16 August 2015, showing a large plume of dust arriving at Cape Verde archipelago (black star in the map). SAVEX-D flight campaign with FAAM’s BAe146 © Crown Copyright, Met Office, UK linking it to ground-based supporting measurements,” outlines Brown. Three further summer schools will be supported under the current EUFAR contract, covering remote sensing and atmospheric in-situ measurement techniques. “There will be a course on trace gas measurements and another on air-sea exchange and turbulence measurements,” continues Brown. “The course on trace gas measurements will be supported by the FAAM BAe-146 and will hopefully be hosted at its home base of Cranfield, so we can maximise flight time. The air-sea interaction school will be hosted in Ireland using the ATR-42 aircraft from France. Using these two large aircraft enables the maximum number of students to experience a real research flight.”
External configuration of ALIDS, an innovative new airborne cloud drop measurement probe developed through a EUFAR Joint Research Activity.
Dr Emmanuel Porcheron (far right) and Dr Elisabeth Gérard (2nd right) present the ALIDS probe on behalf of EUFAR.
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At a glance Full Project Title The EUropean Facility for Airborne Research (EUFAR) Project Objectives • Facilitate and promote transnational access to national research aircraft and instruments. • Reduce redundancy, fill the gaps, and optimise the use and development of airborne facilities to conduct research. • Improve the quality of the service by strengthening expertise through knowledge exchange, development of standards and protocols, constitution of databases, and joint instrumental research activities. • Promote the use of research facilities, especially for young scientists from countries where such facilities are lacking, by providing education and training opportunities on airborne research. • Support both market pull and technology push driven innovation in airborne research, and develop a culture of cooperation between EUFAR experts and SMEs to transfer airborne research instruments, methodologies and software into new products. Project Funding Following three previous contracts under FP5, FP6 and FP7, EUFAR2 will receive €6M over the 4-year span of the project (2014-2018) under EC grant agreement no. 312609. Contact Details Philip R.A. Brown, Cloud Physics Research Manager, EUFAR Scientific and Transnational Access Coordinator Met Office, Fitzroy Road, EXETER EX1 3PB, United Kingdom T: +44 (0)1392 886740 E: phil.brown@metoffice.gov.uk W: www.eufar.net
Phil Brown
Elisabeth Gérard
Philip Brown is the Scientific and Transnational Access Coordinator of EUFAR. He has worked with airborne atmospheric measurements since joining the Met Office in 1979; his main research interests are cloud microphysical and dynamical processes. He has taken part in several UK and international field campaigns with the FAAM aircraft, studying a range of different cloud types. Elisabeth Gérard is the Project Coordinator of EUFAR, a position she has held since 2014 at Météo-France. Previously her main fields of interest were the retrieval of cloud liquid water path and total column water vapour from ground-based, airborne and satellite microwave measurements, and assimilation of satellite radiance data.
Above Left: Car-based DOAS system operated in synergy with the aircraft developed by the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA), used during the EUFAR-funded AROMAPEX flight campaign, April 2016 (Copyright: Alexis Merlaud, Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Belgium). Above Right: Car-based DOAS system operated in synergy with the aircraft developed by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC), used during the EUFAR-funded AROMAPEX flight campaign, April 2016 (Copyright: Alexis Merlaud, Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Belgium).
Research base A number of students from earlier summer schools have continued their studies in the field, illustrating their long-term importance, now researchers are looking to the future of the programme. EUFAR has gained funding across three different framework programmes, but now Brown and his colleagues plan to explore the possibility of establishing it as an independent legal entity. “The hope is to maintain EUFAR, to promote networking activities amongst aircraft operators and scientific users. We hope to maintain those long-term objectives of sharing expertise on developing best practice across a whole range of activities, including developing the instruments, using them, and calibrating and processing the data,” he outlines. One of the major long-term objectives will be to provide European researchers with access to the aircraft best suited to their scientific needs. “At the moment, scientific communities in each country are geared towards using the facilities that they have access to within their own national funding structures,” says Brown. The UK scientific community for example makes extensive use of the FAAM BAe-146 aircraft. While this aircraft has a fairly comprehensive instrument payload, it does have some limitations in terms of both the altitude it can reach and the overall range that it can achieve; Brown says other aircraft may be better suited to some research projects. “In Germany for example, researchers have had access for the last few years to the G550 HALO
DLR aircraft. While it doesn’t carry quite such a comprehensive instrument payload, it can fly at higher altitudes for much longer durations. It may well be that that would be a better facility for the UK atmospheric science community,” he says. The G550 HALO DLR can be used to gather atmospheric data from the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere, yet it is not currently open to trans-national access. “Almost all the available flight time is taken by the German scientific community that supports it,” explains Brown. A long-term objective is to establish a framework where these kinds of facilities can be shared on a wider basis, beyond that currently offered under EUFAR2. “We’ll need the member organisations to reach an agreement about how they swap flight time amongst the facilities and how they calculate their charges in order to ensure access is being shared fairly and equitably,” outlines Brown. Research in EUFAR could also hold interest outside the environmental science sphere, and Brown says researchers are keen to share findings. “We are trying to reach out across as wide a cross-section of the EUFAR community as possible to identify where groups are developing particular innovative measurement techniques, and to look for examples where those techniques or capabilities can be applied beyond the environmental science research sphere,” he continues. “There could hopefully be opportunities for small businesses across Europe to build on EUFAR research and develop marketable products.”
The FUB Cessna aircraft (D-EAFU) used during the EUFAR-funded AROMAPEX flight campaign, April 2016 (Copyright: Alexis Merlaud, Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Belgium).
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