Tomorrow (Tues Oct 27, 2009) begins the second journey in the HIPPO project.
HIAPER (High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research) is a Gulfstream-V owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
HIPPO (HIAPER Pole to Pole Observation) is a project to study CO2 in the atmosphere using pole-to-pole surveys on the HIAPER aircraft.
This is interesting: “It is planned to have two maximum altitude ascents per flight, one in the first half and one in the second half, depending on the ability of the ATC to support altitude changes. Most of the flight will be conducted below RVSM (usually 28,000 ft) in order to allow the GV to go up and down constantly to collect data at different altitudes throughout the troposphere. Ideally the flight would take off and go to FL430 for 15 min, then descend below RVSM and proceed in a sawtooth pattern between FL270 and FL100 with a 1,500 ft/min climb/ascent rate, then climb to FL450 near the end of the flight for about 15 min, descend and proceed to the airport.”
Description of the flight path.
Article in local newspaper and on local TV website.
FlightAware tracking for HIAPER
plus a Google Earth tool for following the flights.