High-performance instrumented airborne platform for environmental research
The high-performance instrumented airborne platform for environmental research is a modified Gulfstream V aircraft operated by the Earth Observing Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The aircraft was purchased brand-new from Gulfstream Aerospace in 2002 and then modified by Lockheed Martin in Greenville, South Carolina over a period of two years, for a total cost of $80 million.
The aircraft includes a wing mounted cloud radar which allows researchers a high resolution view into snow producing storms. The aircraft is designed and instrumented to observe and measure clouds from the stratosphere.
The HIAPER cloud radar is an airborne, polarimetric, millimeter-wavelength radar capable of cloud remote sensing. Whole air samplers also collect air samples for later analysis on the ground.
Data collected by the 2013 HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations campaign is publicly available.
