First meeting and technical problems

Today was the first general meeting in Longyearbyen. By now we are around 35 people, so even some people had to sit in the second row of our meeting room.

After discussing our scientific goals we talked about current technical issues of the scientific equipment. Due to that problems neither Polar 5 nor Polar 6 will take off tomorrow. The first start of Polar 5 is postponed to Tuesday whereas the earliest possible start of Polar 6 is Wednesday. The weather conditions for the upcoming week look promising for the first measurements.

Waiting for something........ P5&6 arrival

Today we could, for the first time during ACLOUD, practice how to wait in cold weather for an aircraft to land. One of the most frequent tasks during aircraft campaigns. Polar 6 and Polar 5 started from Tromsö in the morning and needed only about 3 hours to cross the ocean between Svalbard and Scandinavia. Polar 6 was a little faster and arrived first. Before we finished to unload the addional cargo, also Polar 5 landed and we could welcome crew and operators.

New Arrivals

Today the first large group of ACLOUD scientists arrived in Longyearbyen. Surprisingly, all in the second commercial flight by SAS. Nobody took Norwegian airline, even if they provide WiFi on board...  Also nobody was lost during the stop in Oslo. So we could guide all safely to our hotel, the Coal Miner Cabins.

In the same plane also the air freight arrived in the hangar of Longyearbyen airport. That was record breaking fast as the 638 kg of cargo boxes were send just at begin of the week. We also started to unload the sea freight container searching for all the personal polar clothes. Most were quite easy to access, but not all... and moved into the hanger using such typical airport wagons. Here we could learn how airport workers must feel when they have to drag and pull all the heave luggage into planes and out again.

Polar 5 and 6 are on the way

Today was the first day of the ferry of Polar 5 and Polar 6 to Longyearbyen. Because of some custom issues we left from Bremen airport a bit later then expected, but already could finish half of the way during the last hours. Within 3.5 hours flight time we first went to Trondheim, where we had a quick stop for refuling the aircraft. About half an hour later we were already back in the air again and were heading towards Tromsoe, our final destination for the first day of ferry. Here we arrived at about 8 pm. If everything wents well and the weather stays good we will make the final jump to Longyearbyen starting by tomorrow morning.

Of course, from a scientific point of view, just a ferry of the aircraft to Longyearbyen would be wasted flight time. Therefore, we used the chance to put already a small scientific crew onboard of both aircraft. Thus, during the ferry we could once again intensively test the instruments and carry out some first measurements of nice low level clouds. The good thing is that except of some smaller issues, all instruments performed well. The bad thing is that I wanted to upload a picture of such a nice cloud field, but the internet in our hotel is not strong enough. But I guess and hope that there will be much more of such clouds and the chance of posting photos of them during the next weeks of ACLOUD. 

Alternate Office

While waiting for appointments with airport administration, meeting room owner, rental car service, etc... we spend some time in the Coal Miners Bar. Warm air, nice furniture, WiFi, ....  and only 30 NOK for coffee or tee with unlimited refill. In addition a nice view into the valley Longyeardalen.

 Silke, our AWI logistic expert is concentrating on answering mails from home. All the local arrangements she already prepared perfectly. No surprises so far. Tomorrow it will be more crowded. The first bunch of ACLOUD participants will arrive. One day later we expect the aircrafts to ferry to LYR.

Nice clouds and eduroam at LYR

-5°C and clouds with little snow, that's how weather should be at Svalbard. Looks like bringing warm clothes was not the worst idea. Switching on my smart phone at the airport waiting hall, I imidiately got WiFi connection via Eduroam. There is no place left to be save from Email and Co....

Polar 5 camouflages as Polar 6 - Testflights successfull

On Wednesday, Polar 5 was supposed to have a test flight after the integration was fully completed. Even if the configuration was already certified in February, deintagrating and integrating the instruments, always can cause some unexpected trouble. Everything was set for a early flight at 11:00 and Polar 5 also did taxi to the spot where all the instruments are usually initialized. But then waiting for take-off took longer and longer. Finally, Polar 5 came back and did shut down the engines.
The reason was not one of the instruments, it was the aircraft itself. In particular, the TCAS transponder failed to work. But good to have two aircraft. Luke the Polar 5 mechanic quickly exchanged the transponder by the one of Polar 6.

Therefore, flightradar24 showed Polar 5 flying in camouflage with the Polar 6 aircraft code C-GHGF instead of C-GAWI. However, the flight was succesfull, We could perform all patterns we needed to check the instruments and even observed a nice cloud layer that was visible in the new instruments MiRAC and Eagle/Hawk.

Today on Thursday, Polar 6 was scheduled to have the certification flight. Here a lot of paper work needed to be finished until the final go was announced. So take-off was in the late afternoon. But the spring Sun is already up quite a long time in the evening. The weather conditions have been also quite suitable for a certification flight, which has to be conducted under visual flight rules, meaning cloud free conditions. Also Polar 6 could perform some calibration pattern. That's why the flight track looks similar to a roller coaster, including circles of up to 40 degree bank angle. Yeah!!!