December 30, 2002

Krista Laursen
Director, HIAPER Project Office

As this month, and this year, come to a close, I wanted to take the opportunity to once again bring you all up to date on recent activities here in the Project Office.

The month of December saw a number of us in the Project Office and within ATD continuing detailed discussions with Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin about the exact modifications to be made to the GV. From 11-12 December, a Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) was held here at NCAR between UCAR, NCAR, Gulfstream, and Lockheed Martin staff. This afforded all of us the opportunity to take a look at some of the more detailed designs that Lockheed Martin is beginning to assemble for the aircraft modifications and gave several Project Office and ATD staff the chance to sit down with Gulfstream and Lockheed representatives to review and resolve some specific issues pertaining to the configuration of the modified aircraft. This first TIM was a valuable experience for all of us and helped give all of the participants an even clearer idea of what specific action items need to be dealt with in the near term in order to continue to push the modification of the aircraft along on schedule.

At the same time that the TIM was going on, a second external review of the HIAPER project was conducted. From 11-13 December, a panel of six members convened here at NCAR to review the status of the project, participate in some of the TIM discussions, and to consider a list of questions posed to them by Tim Killeen. The six panel members were as follows: Roger Wakimoto (UCLA), Chair; Walt Brooks (NASA); Sue LaFratta (NSF); Judith Lotz (GSA); Robert Naughton (NASA); Katy Schmoll (UCAR). Each of the panel members brought to the table a wealth of expertise on various aspects of aircraft acquisition, modification, instrumentation, and support, and they engaged all of us participating in the review in in-depth, energetic, and highly beneficial discussions. Tim Killeen and I have received from Roger Wakimoto the final findings and recommendations from the panel, and we are now in the process of reviewing this document. In general, UCAR, NCAR, the Project Office, and ATD received good marks from the review panel regarding the conduct of the HIAPER Project to date, and the panel has also made what I feel are a number of very good recommendations for how we all might better carry out the big task of getting the GV ready on time and within budget for its first deployment in 2005. I believe I can safely speak for all of us who participated in the review when I say that it was an extremely rewarding and profitable experience and one which I feel will help to further strengthen our management of this important acquisition in the coming months. I thank each of the panel members for their time, energy, and input over the course of the review period.

Coming Up in the New Year

In January 2003, our in-depth technical discussions with Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin will continue, as we move toward the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the project in late February. Planning and design efforts for the various critical infrastructure tasks (data acquisition system development, data display and processing software development, equipment rack design and development, etc.) will begin to "ramp up" as the various HIAPER IPT subgroups assigned to oversee each of the infrastructure tasks continue to have meetings with their members and NCAR staff work together to design and begin constructing the infrastructure for the GV. Under the present production schedule, it is planned that modification of the HIAPER GV will begin in April 2003.

At the moment, the GV is back at Gulfstream's facility in Savannah, Georgia. Under the terms of an agreement made with Gulfstream earlier this fall, a new digital flight data recorder system is being installed in HIAPER. Gulfstream needed a platform on which to install, test, and certify this new system, and the production of the HIAPER green airframe coincided with their needs. Thus, this new flight data recorder system (which will provide double the number of output variables to the pilots) is being installed in HIAPER and will undergo ground and flight testing required for FAA certification in early 2003. This is being done at no additional charge to the HIAPER project and will provide the RAF pilots who will be operating the aircraft with valuable additional information on the performance of the aircraft in flight. Once the GV returns to Lockheed Martin's Greenville, South Carolina plant in February, it will be jacked and shored in preparation for the modification work.

In Conclusion

I want to end this monthly report by thanking all of you for your help and support over the past several months as we worked to get the Project Office up and running. Your support, encouragement, and assistance have been invaluable as we push ahead with the HIAPER project, and I look forward to continuing my work with all of you in 2003.

On behalf of everyone here in the Project Office, I wish you and your families a very happy, safe, and peaceful new year.

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