ALTITUDE 100,000 ft 90,000 ft 80,000 ft 70,000 ft 60,000 ft
WHAT IS THE VERTICAL RANGE OF THE LOWER ATMOSPHERIC OBSERVING FACILITIES?
50,000 ft
NSF/NCAR HIAPER
40,000 ft 30,000 ft
Owned by NSF and operated by NCAR, the High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research (HIAPER), is an extensively modified Gulfstream V jet capable of attaining 51,000 feet, flying for 10 hours, and covering 5,000 nautical miles. HIAPER has a payload capacity of 5,600 pounds and is used for a wide range of deployments,
20,000 ft
including studies of the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere.
NSF/NCAR C-130
Operated by NCAR, the C-130 is a heavy-lifting turboprop aircraft with a maximum flight altitude, of 26,000 feet, 10-hour flight endurance, and 2,900-nautical-mile range. With a payload of 13,000 pounds, the C-130 has room for large instrument suites and research crews.
UW KING AIR
Operated by the University of Wyoming, the King Air has a maximum flight altitude of 28,000 feet, a typical flight duration of 3.7 hours, a range of 1,800 nautical miles, and a 1,850 pound payload capacity. The twin-engine turbo- prop is instrumented primarily to support research in cloud physics and bound- ary layer processes.
10,000 ft
NCAR S-POLKA CIRPAS A-10
This extensively modified, armored military plane is operated by CIRPAS and has a flight ceiling (after significant fuel burn) of 35,000 feet, a normal mission duration of 3 hours, an estimated range of 400 nautical miles, and a payload capacity of 11,000 pounds.
The S-PolKa is a ground-based, transportable weather radar offer- ing dual-
polarimetric and dual-wavelength observations at S-band (10 centim- eter) and K
CSU-CHILL a-band (0.8
centimeter) wavengths. The entire radar can be packaged into seven 20-foot shipping containers, which allows it to be
temporarily deployed almost anywhere, including remote sites.
The Colorado State University CHILL radar system uses a unique dual-offset feed antenna to attain high levels of polarization purity. Several antenna feed-horns are available, allowing the radar to operate at frequencies of both 3 and 9 GHz (11- and 3-centimeter wave- lengths). Simultane- ous operations at both wavelengths are also supported. An antenna main beam pattern width of 0.3˚ is achieved at the 3 centimeter wave- length, allowing the collection of very high spatial resolution data.
CIRPAS Twin Otter
Operated by CIRPAS, the Twin Otter is a non-pressurized turbo- prop, twin-engine aircraft. It has a practi- cal mission ceiling of 18,000 feet (or 12,000 feet without oxygen), a flight endurance of about 5 hours fully loaded, a range of 800 nautical miles, and a payload capacity of 1,500 pounds. It is equipped with an instrument suite con- sisting of meteorologi- cal, aerosol, cloud, precipitation, radia- tion, and chemical sensors.
Note: Instruments and platforms are not to scale.
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