During the WindVal campaign we took the chance to fly to the summit of Greenland, where the Environmental Observatory is situated high on the ice shelf 3200 m above sea level.
Before take-off. (DLR)
This Danish and US founded Arctic research facility is well-equipped with meteorological instruments. In particular, the radiosonde launch at midnight and a boundary layer wind lidar are valuable for comparison with the wind lidars on the Falcon.
The weather forecast showed a cloud-free window over the target area around midnight. Everybody was excited about the midnight-flight to the summit, last but not least the people on ground, who rarely have aircraft overflying the station.
David Woudsma refuelling. (DLR)
Instrument preparation on the Falcon had already started in the afternoon and went smoothly. During the detailed functional checks different problems were detected on both lidars, but could be solved just in time. This meant that the lidar operators had the right amount of adrenalin to keep them awake for the night-flight!
The Falcon is usually moved out of the hangar to be refueled and powered up about one hour before take-off. This time, however, the hangar door jammed and wouldn’t move, even by the aircraft towing car. The door on the back of the hangar was the only alternative, but blocked by a A320 set-up for maintenance. After the Airbus had been towed out of the hangar the Falcon finally took-off about 30 minutes late.
Summit Station. (DLR)
We were only 20 minutes late arriving at the summit and the weather forecast, once more, turned out to be right. Of course, during this time of the year the Sun is still above the horizon and was not blocked by any clouds. The range limit of the Falcon only allowed two overpasses and two full circles above the station. However, all instruments performed well and we should have taken enough data to study the influence of wind above the ground on the wind and ground speeds measured by the lidars on the moving airborne platform.
Sunlit ice shelf. (DLR)
Just before landing back in Keflavik the Sun finally settled behind the horizon. It was something really special to fly to this scientific outpost in the middle of Greenland on this sunset cruise. To see the red-lit mountains on Greenland’s east coast was really enjoyable, made even more enjoyable by the successful mission.
Post from: Christian Lemmerz (DLR)
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