BORTAS :Flying is over...now the hard work begins!
As you may have gathered from the last post, all the flight team are now safely back in the UK and the aircraft is getting ready for its next deployment. First impressoins suggest that it was a very successful campaign. We were very lucky with the weather and positioning of the forest fires which meant that we were able to sample ageing plumes on several occassions.
BORTAS: Confessions of a model monkey on his first reality tour: part 1
Post by Paul Palmer
It was only when the FAAM BAe146 aircraft taxied into Halifax airport at the start of BORTAS I suddenly realised how real this experiment was. What had I got myself into?! Sure, I was reasonably prepared but as a model monkey (cf: lab monkey) I usually get to hang around computers and whiteboards and only use data other people collect from their instruments. Here I was with the responsibility to direct this multi-million pound mobile atmospheric laboratory towards fires that are difficult to predict and their resulting pollutant plumes that are, at best, elusive because of their thin layered structure. No plumes to intercept would have serious implications for a number of PhDs and postdoc careers. No pressure, then.
BORTAS : Thunder Bay, Goose Bay, Halifax - a little road trip for the flight crew
Written by Sarah Moller
So I had to leave the guys in Halifax on 27th but the aircraft didn't leave until 2nd August. The day before I left the aircraft and a slimline crew of scientists (to give as much fuel and space for an engineer) set off to Thunder Bay to try and get some measurements close to the source of the plumes, the fires in Ontario. Since Thunder Bay is a long way from Halifax it was necessary to have an overnight stop there.