May 30, 2003

Krista Laursen
Director, HIAPER Project Office

In the last status report I sent out in March, I reported on the participation of NCAR, UCAR, NSF, and HIAPER Advisory Committee (HAC) personnel in the preliminary design review (PDR) for HIAPER in Greenville, South Carolina. In the intervening several weeks since my last message, NCAR staff have been involved in numerous discussions with Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin personnel to resolve some of the outstanding engineering issues that remained after the PDR. Areas in which efforts have been focused have included finalization of the mission power rack configuration, discussions of the delivered weight of the modified aircraft (sometimes referred to as the zero fuel weight [ZFW] of the GV), and discussions of the configuration/layout of the aircraft cabin to determine the locations of power and signal distribution boxes, cabin interior attachment points, and pass-throughs in the various aircraft bulkheads (to allow for running wiring and tubing through bulkhead sections as needed). In order to ease the resolution of various issues, Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin HIAPER team members visited NCAR from 14-15 May to participate in a Technical Interchange Meeting, or TIM, with NCAR and UCAR staff. Over the course of one-and-a-half days of discussion, the team of assembled project personnel was able to make significant progress in agreeing to some final design arrangements for the aircraft.

The culmination of the past several months' of engineering discussions will be the critical design review (CDR) for HIAPER, which will be held from 24-26 June in Greenville. During this meeting, Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin personnel will present to the NCAR, UCAR, NSF, and HAC representatives in attendance detailed information on all of the modifications to be made to the aircraft, and NCAR/UCAR HIAPER personnel will be asked to give verbal agreement to all design packages with which we concur. As you can imagine, the CDR represents an extremely important milestone in the GV development process, and by late July/August, it is planned that Lockheed will proceed with starting the actual modification of the aircraft.

The HIAPER aircraft itself now resides in the Lockheed hangar (hangar 11A) in which it will be modified. While the May TIM was being conducted here at NCAR, Lockheed personnel in South Carolina were beginning to "pickle" the aircraft. This process is essentially the equivalent of putting the GV "up on blocks." Critical aircraft systems (avionics, engines) are either removed or protected, and fuel is removed from the aircraft. Prior to the start of modification in August, Lockheed staff will jack and shore the aircraft in order to prepare it for the several months of modification work to be done.

Another important recent development in the HIAPER project involved Gulfstream's decision to award a subcontract for completion of the aircraft to Garrett Aviation in Savannah, Georgia. Garrett now has responsibility for completing the interior of the aircraft, which will involve installing the galley, lavatory, carpeting, seats, passenger service units (PSUs, which include light and oxygen service), side wall paneling, and headliners. Garrett will also oversee the painting of the aircraft following the completion of aircraft modification in the summer of 2004. Over the past two weeks, Garrett personnel have been working with NCAR staff to come up with possible design ideas for the GV paint scheme, and it is intended that the final paint scheme for the aircraft will be decided upon and approved during the June CDR. Once the paint scheme has been finalized, a rendering of it will be posted to the HIAPER Website.

As I discussed in the March status update, Dick Friesen of the HPO and Jack Fox and Mark Lord of ATD put together a package of information on possible wing pods for the GV and posted these materials to the HIAPER web site for review and comment by the community. One important piece of feedback received from the community was the insight that it will be a good idea for the HPO and ATD to have airflow studies of the two candidate pods conducted prior to making a purchasing decision so as to determine if either pod will (when mounted on the aircraft) adversely impact the control surfaces of the wing and/or the performance of the aircraft. This was a very valuable recommendation that we received, and we are now acting on it. Dick and Jack have begun discussions with the airflow modeling group at Gulfstream to try and put together some type of study to be done of the two wing pods presently under consideration for purchase for the aircraft. Once this study has been completed (we hope by sometime this summer), the HPO and ATD will be able to proceed with confidence with the acquisition of wing pods for the aircraft.

In Conclusion

I mentioned in March that the Project Office was undertaking a thorough review and update of the contents of the HIAPER Website. Owing to the efforts of Jen Oxelson, this work has now been completed, and when you visit the Website, you will see that some of the contents on the home page has been re-arranged and streamlined in appearance so as to make it easier for visitors to find information of interest. I want to thank Jen for all of her work on this and for her ongoing dedication to making sure the HIAPER site is kept up to date and professional in appearance.

Finally, I would like to introduce a new member of the Project Office. Carla Hassler joined the HPO on 14 May as our new administrative assistant, and she brings with her to NCAR several years of experience supporting scientists and engineers from her time spent working with various subcontractors at Rocky Flats. Her outstanding communications skills, technical writing and editing expertise, and solid computer skills will, I am sure, make her an invaluable member of the HIAPER team.

As always, should you have any questions about the HIAPER program, please do not hesitate to contact me here in the HPO.