This section is taken from the Orcestra campaign book.
The German High Altitude and Long-Range Research Aircraft (HALO) is a modified Gulfstream G550 and operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is equipped with remote sensing instruments and a facility to launch dropsondes. It has long endurance (up to 9 flight hours), a long range (about 8000 km), and a high ceiling altitude (15.5 km). Its flight speed is typically 240 m/s at 14 km, and 220 m/s at 9 km. As the aircraft is build to be flying at high altitudes, most of the instrumentation observes the atmosphere (and in particular clouds) from the nadir perspective.
Instrumentation¶
The instrumentation of the HALO aircraft is based on contributions from various universities and research institutions. Each instrument is developed and operated by an individual group, which leads to a modern instrumentation suite and well-trained operators. This section includes individual contact points for the specific instruments.
In particular, the instrumentation consists of broadband radiometers (BACARDI), basic instrumentation (BAHAMAS), a dropsonde launching system (Dropsondes), the active (radar) and passive microwave package (HAMP), irradiance spectrometers (SMART), a thermal imager (VELOX), an infrared radiometer (VELOX-KT19), a water vapor differential absorption lidar (WALES) and spectral and polarization resolving imagers (specMACS).
