June 13, 2002

Krista Laursen
Director, HIAPER Project Office

It is always gratifying to be able to report good news during a project, so I am particularly happy to be able to open this June HIAPER project status report with some exciting news. On Wednesday of last week (5 June), the NSF/NCAR GV green aircraft was completed and received its Certificate of Airworthiness (COA) at Gulfstream's facility in Savannah, Georgia. As I'm sure you can all imagine, this event marked an important milestone in the overall project schedule, and it was extremely exciting for all of us here in the HIAPER Project Office (HPO) and throughout UCAR and NCAR to receive several digital pictures of "our" green aircraft (serial number 677) taken by Gulfstream on the same day that the COA was issued. While those of us involved with the HIAPER project knew that HIAPER would become a reality after the contract was signed with Gulfstream last December, that reality came into even sharper focus for all of us when we looked at the first pictures of the completed S/N 677 sitting on the ramp outside of one of Gulfstream's hangars.

I invite each of you to visit the HIAPER website at www.hiaper.ucar.edu and to take a look at pictures of the completed green aircraft. These latest photos have been posted in the HIAPER Photo Gallery section of the website. As you'll notice from looking at the pictures posted in the photo gallery, the green airframe really is green. This signature color is attributable to the coating of primer paint that is applied to the various sections of the aircraft during production.

So, what happens now? At the end of June, a group of UCAR, NCAR, and NSF staff members and Dave Jorgensen (the chair of the HIAPER Advisory Committee) will travel to Savannah for the third and final Integrated Project Team (IPT) meeting with Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin staff. (I'll discuss this meeting in more detail below.) Following this meeting, the NSF/NCAR GV will be transferred to Lockheed Martin's facility in Greenville, South Carolina where it will be "pickled" (put into storage). The GV will reside in Greenville for the duration of the modification effort, which is scheduled to run from August 2002 to August 2004. Following extensive ground and flight testing of the modified aircraft from August through September 2004 and issuance of the FAA Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) for the aircraft in September 2004, the aircraft will be delivered to UCAR/NCAR in October 2004. It is presently planned that the GV will support its first research project in June 2005, following a several month infrastructure integration effort by NCAR staff.

I will continue to report on the status of the HIAPER development effort via these monthly reports, and information and updates will also be posted to the HIAPER website. So, I invite you all to bookmark the HIAPER site and to check back often to learn about the latest developments.

Now, I would like to touch upon a few key activities that are either ongoing here in the Project Office or that are coming up on the horizon.

Current Activities

As was mentioned in last month's status report, primary emphasis here in the Project Office is presently being placed on detailed planning and discussion of the modifications to be made to the GV. Over the course of the past several weeks, Dick Friesen (HIAPER Engineering Manager) and other HPO staff members have been working with a number of UCAR and NCAR staff members and external community members to gather information and perform analyses of engineering data (e.g., airflow studies, power availability, wing leading edge space availability for wiring, etc.) received from Gulfstream in an effort to refine our thinking and push toward making decisions about the locations and detailed specifications of the modifications to be made to the aircraft. (See the "What is HIAPER?" section of the Web site for a discussion of the types of modifications to be made to the aircraft.) This is a complex component of the HIAPER project and one that will be critical toward the ultimate success of HIAPER as a leading edge research platform. Dick is, in my opinion, doing a fantastic job of working with broad sections of both the UCAR/NCAR and external communities in order to build a consensus of how the aircraft should be modified. The active involvement and enthusiasm of the significant numbers of university and government laboratory personnel and UCAR/NCAR staff members who have so far become involved in these technical and engineering discussions is proving to be invaluable as Dick and the rest of us here in the HPO finalize the modification decisions and prepare to pass this information on to Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin by mid-August. During a Systems Requirements Conference to be held in late August/early September, UCAR, NCAR, and NSF HIAPER team members will review these modification decisions with Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin personnel. Following this meeting, Lockheed Martin will begin formulating detailed engineering drawings for modification of the aircraft.

As part of this modifications planning effort, a group of UCAR, NCAR, and NSF staff members and Dave Jorgensen of the HAC will travel to Savannah to participate in the third and final IPT meeting with Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin personnel from 25-26 June. The agenda for this meeting calls for targeted, detailed discussions of specific engineering and technical issues that remain to be resolved prior to the making of final modification decisions for the aircraft. During this meeting, information will also be sought that is needed by NCAR staff to begin planning efforts related to infrastructure integration (SATCOM, intercom system, equipment racks, etc.) into the modified aircraft. IPT 3 will also provide a much anticipated opportunity for those attending the meeting to see, walk through, and photograph the completed green NSF/NCAR GV.

Work is continuing at a rapid pace to assemble the various IPT subgroups working on various aspects of the HIAPER project. Co-chairs are now in place for each of the subgroups, and these co-chairs are now in the process of sending out membership invitations to university, government laboratory, NSF, and UCAR and NCAR personnel to serve on the various subgroups. Once the membership lists of each subgroup have been finalized, complete information on the composition and charges of the subgroups will be posted to the HIAPER Web site. So, please check back to the HIAPER site shortly for more information on this topic. But for now, here is a listing of the eleven subgroups that have been created by the HPO (co-chairs are listed in parentheses):

• Data Acquisition System Design (Dick Friesen, NCAR/HPO, and Mike Spowart, NCAR/ATD)
• Data Display, Access, and Formats (Chris Webster, NCAR/ATD, and Mike Daniels, NCAR/ATD)
• Research Electrical Systems Design, Integration, and Support (Mike Spowart, NCAR/ATD, and Kurt Zrubek, NCAR/ATD)
• Operations and Maintenance (Henry Boynton, NCAR/ATD, and Ed Ringleman, NCAR/ATD)
• Safety and Certification (Jeff Stith, NCAR/ATD, and Henry Boynton, NCAR/ATD)
• Chemistry Instrumentation (Mike Coffey, NCAR/ACD, and Bill Brune, Penn State Univ.)
• Radiation and Remote Sensing Instrumentation (Rick Shetter, NCAR/ACD, and Graeme Stephens, Colorado State Univ.)
• Aerosol and Microphysical Instrumentation (Jeff Stith, NCAR/ATD, and Lynn Russell, Princeton Univ.)
• State Parameter and Air Motion Sensing Instrumentation (Allen Schanot, NCAR/ATD, and Carl Friehe, Univ. of California, Irvine)
• Inlets and Airflow Analysis (Dick Friesen, NCAR/HPO, and Cindy Twohy, Oregon State Univ.)
• Engineering and Design Support (Mark Lord, NCAR/ATD, and Jack Fox, NCAR/ATD)

The Upcoming NSF-Led Community Instrumentation Workshop

Planning for the HIAPER Community Instrumentation Workshop is now moving full speed ahead, and earlier this week several of you received via email a preliminary announcement for this event. The workshop will be held here at NCAR from 4-6 November 2002 and will involve intensive discussions of critical environmental measurements that can and should be made using HIAPER and the types of instrumentation that should be developed and made available on this new platform for obtaining such measurements.

As you may already know, $12.5 million of the total HIAPER budget have been targeted for the development of research instrumentation for the new aircraft. These funds will be awarded competitively through a NSF proposal and review process. Jim Huning, the NSF HIAPER Program Official, and Jarvis Moyers, Director of the Division of Atmospheric Sciences at NSF, will be attending the workshop and will discuss the terms and conditions of the Announcement of Opportunity (AO) and grant award process for the HIAPER research instrumentation funds.

The Instrumentation Workshop Program Committee held its first telecon on Tuesday, 4 June to begin discussions of the content and format of the workshop. This first group discussion was very productive, and the committee members are now working on putting together a draft program and lists of possible invited speakers for the workshop. Further work on both of these topics and on other aspects of the workshop will take place during the next committee telecon, scheduled to occur on Tuesday, 18 June.

As was outlined in last month's HIAPER status report, the members of the Program Committee are as follows:

• Jim Huning, NSF HIAPER Program Official and Chair
• Chuck Brock, NOAA
• Bill Brune, Penn State Univ.
• Dave Carlson, NCAR/ATD Director
• Dave Jorgensen, NOAA and HAC Chair
• Krista Laursen, NCAR/HPO Director

Should any of you have any suggestions regarding the content and structure of the workshop, please do not hesitate to contact one of us on the Program Committee to discuss your ideas. Also, I ask that you "spread the word" about this workshop to any of your colleagues who might be interested in attending.

The preliminary announcement for the HIAPER Community Instrumentation Workshop has been posted to the HIAPER Web site under the "News and Upcoming Events" section. As is stated in this announcement, the HPO asks that you contact Harriet Barker, HIAPER Program Administrator, at hiaperinfo@ucar.edu by the end of June to notify her of your intent to register for and attend the workshop. The HPO wants to receive this notification information from interested attendees in order to aid us in planning for the workshop and to ensure that all interested parties continue to receive further announcements and information for the workshop.

Within about a month, the official workshop announcement -- including program, registration, and local logistics information -- will be released. This announcement will be posted to the HIAPER website and will also be advertised as appropriate both within and outside of UCAR/NCAR. So, stay tuned for further information about this important HIAPER project event.

In Conclusion

As was mentioned earlier in this report, we are now in a complex and critical phase of the HIAPER project as a number of UCAR/NCAR staff members and external community members take a detailed look at a wealth of engineering data for the GV and prepare to make final modification decisions for the aircraft. The ultimate success of any project the size and scope of the HIAPER acquisition requires the involvement and commitment of a large number of individuals. It is wonderful to see the enthusiasm and dedication that so many individuals both within and outside of UCAR and NCAR are already bringing to this project, and I thank everyone for their time and efforts to date as we move forward with the work of modifying the NSF/NCAR GV and bringing it on-line for the community. It is my privilege to get to work with such a dedicated HIAPER team, and I look forward to our continued efforts together over the coming years.

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