Atlantic crossing

On a three day flight, with two legs on each day the aircraft N53W with AVIRIS - NG onboard was transferred from Bridgewater USA to Zurich CH. On Sunday 16.05.2021 the aircraft arrived later in the afternoon in Zurich and was hangared at MFGZ (motor flight group Zurich). After a long flight the Dynamic Aviation, NASA JPL and UZH crews met for the first time. Shortly after that, OCON crews went to the hotel and prepared the flight plans to transfer the aircraft from LSZH to LSMD, our mission homebase.

Transfer from Zurich to Dübendorf

Today, the aircraft packed with survival gear for the Atlantic crossing was transfered to our homebase in Dübendorf (LSMD). After the short hop, the aircraft was towed into the hangaring facility we call "The flying carpet". On this day no missions where to be flown, since this day was used for the different crews to regroup in LSMD and for the NASA/JPL crew to inrtoduce the UZH crew to the aircraft and the AVIRIS - NG sensor. First, the survival gear wich was not needed for the missions in Europe where unloaded and stored in our storage office at LSMD. Additionally, we started to load the flight plans for the mission targets on SnapShot, whereby we got familiar with the navigation system.

NASA/JPL drill

On the second day the UZH FLt Ops team got a drill from the NASA/JPL and Dynamic Aviation crew. In these drills we where shown how to handle the aircraft, what to look out for and which steps are important. This drill included the operation of the sensor on a mission, how comunicate with the pilots in flight and how to prepare and store the aircraft for a flight. As part of this drill we had an intensive section of "fun under the aircraft", where we were shown how to check if the slit window is clear and where we had the chance to look deep into AVIRIS - NG's eyes.
On this day we had a special guest at the airport of Dübendorf; an ESA officer from Frascati, Italy joined us. Actually it was the principal investigator (PI) of the ESA CHIME mission. This was a really inspiring day, having the chance to talk to a ESA PI whose doing research with the data we are collecting with the airborne HSI sensor and the ASD field spectrometer. The main goal of this research is to develop a new space borne HSI sensor, which will be used for different research areas, like surface biology, geology and ecology. Actually, the data measured with AVIRIS - NG will be used amongst other scientific projects, to simulate the next generation Copernicus satellite sensor system. With these satellites, science should make an additional step towards observing, monitoring, understanding and finally managing biodiversity and Earth's ecosystem from space. This day was also used to invite people of companies we work with, like the CEO of MFGZ. It was a nice oportunity to get to konw the people behind the companies involved in this campaign. It was awesome to talk to all those people and listening to their awesome stories. The aviation industry is a small comunity in a big wide world, what became obvious when one of our guests told, he knew Dynamic Aviation from one of his deployments in Afganistan, where he worked with this company. This morning was a great chance to set up social Netowrks which appeared to be very usefull later on in this mission.

Dry run / first test flight

After three days of preparation and istruction from NASA/JPL personel we started a first attempt to fly an imaging mission. The first target was the lake of Geneva. This mission is flown on FL280 (28'000ft / 8534m) and ran into problems, which where caused by special weather conditions. Given that the jet - stream (passat wind at high altitudes) was situated more to the South than ususal, more humid and especially colder air masses are located over Switzerland and caused the window at the slit (where the sensor is looking out of the aircraft) was fogging up, making the imaging mission at lake Geneva impossible. Therefore, the data accquired can not be used for data analysis. In the end, this flight was a good opportunity for our team to do a dry run and test all procedures. Despite the disapointing results, it was a successfull sortie.

Mission in France - St. Beaume nad Corsica

After having solved the fogging issues of the slit window and with better weather conditions ahead, the FLt Ops team decided to try to fly two missions in SE France (St.Beaume and Corsica). For this mission it took three attempts to get the mission done. The first time we pulled the aircraft out of the hangar and started the engines before our flight plan was cancelled. When the pilots figured out who cancelled our flight it was to late to start a second attempt, the sun angles would have caused a to bad BRDF over the targets. The next day, we started two more attempts, where each time we got closer to our goal. However, at lunch sitting on the runway, ready to go, our flight plan was cancelled again and we had to call it a day. In the evening our pilots finally got some answers, especially to the question, why our flight plan was cancelled. On the third day, the flight plan was filed in such a way, that it was accepted and we where able to get the mission done! On transfer, the peeks of the apls where peering out of the clouds - what a gorgeous scenery. On approach to our first target in St. Beaume, we discovered some fogging on the window, which cleared away before we started imaging. After completing the mission we emediately headed out for Corsica, beeing tight on fuel with this mission. Unfortunately, we where not allowed to land in France to refuel the aircraft, what forced us to plan the missions in such a way, that we collect as much data as possible in 4.5h mission time, including transfer from LSMD to our mission target and back. Approaching Corsica, we opened the window shutter on descent to our mission area and found it yet again fogged up. However, with the flight lines nicely low in warmer air masses and a nice manouver our pilot flew to approach the first line, our window cleared up just in time. Actually, on approach we did such a steep turn, that the window caught some sun rays which probably helped to clear the window on time. This mission was flown in race track pattern and with pretty steep turns, to save as much time as possible and make it home with the required fuel reserves.
On the way home we overflew parts of Italy and approached LSMD from the South, crossing the alps which where enclosed by the clouds.

Northern Germany

Because this mission was operated on a Sunday, N53W was relocated from LSMD to LSZH, because LSMD is closed on weekends, hence no operations are possible in and out of LSMD. This mission lead N53W to Demmin Northern Germany. On the way to Demmin, some mission targets in Eastern Germany where overflown as targets of opportunity. Some targets where close to the Czech border, Leipzig and Berlin, wherefore the Wester most part of the Czech republic was overflown. In Demmin, the high altitude lines where accquired, before N53W had to be brought to the planned airport in Hannover (EDDV) for refuelling. With full tanks, the crew started the transfer back to LSZH, where a successfull mission day ended.

Central Germany - Flying in the Bise

After the successfull completion of the mission in Northern Germany, the objective for this day (31.05.2021) was to accquire data in central Germany, close to Erfurt and Kassel as well as some missions close to Basel, Switzerland. The morning started at the handling agents office (MFGZ) at the airport of Zurich. For these missions we had some difficulties to coordinate the missions with the ATC supervisors, what was solved with a couple of phone calls with the supervisor of the supervisors. Once all missions where coordinated we took off form LSZH and were photographed by an airplane spotter, as we found out later. Because of the Nortwesterly winds (Bise) blowing that day, the aircraft was tossed around in the turbulent air in the boundary layer, where we had to fly for data accquisition. After completing the lines in central Germany, we picked up five lines in Basel before we returned back to LSMD.

South Italy & Mt. Vesuvius

A couple days after the Germany mission, the weather conditions were best in Italy. Therefore, we started a first mission in South Italy on 03.06.2021. On this mission we started with imaging the crater of Mt. Vesuvius, before we headed to the ESA mission target close to the gulf of Salerno. There we overflew and imaged the Sele river, which flows into the Mediterranean at the Amalfi coast. There we first did the high altitude lines, which have a resolution/ground smaping distanc (GSD) of 6m, before we did the low level images GSD). Once the mission was successfully completed, the aircraft was flown to Naples fore refuelling before transferrning back home.

Missions in Italy

The following day, a bunch of missions was flown in Northern and central Italy. The imaging mission started in North Eastern Italy, where the beautifull lagoon of Venice was overflown and imaged. From there N53W continued to the lake of Trasimeno, the fourth largest lake of Italy, which is strongly affected by algae. Thereafter, smaller targets in the vicinity of Grosetto were overflown for data accquisition. Following the successfull accquisition of the targets, the airport of Naples was approached like on the previous day and N53W was refueled. On both days, the crew was taken to the FBO office, where we were offered coffee, refreshing drinks and some snacks. After refuelling N53W headed back to LSZH.

Missions in France

On this Wednesday N53W headed out to Montpellier, France. There the missions over Pic St. Loup and Puéchabon where completed. For both sites, the high level missions where flown before the low level missions. However, a redo of some of the lines were necessary, because of some clouds on the images taken on this day. After completing these two missions N53W was heading back to LSMD, where on the way back the mission over Bachtel, in the vicinity of LSMD was imaged before landing. The coordination with ATC was fairly easy this time, however we were not able to get the mission over Massane, because another company was flying with their aircraft doing some aerial imaging. But with the metreological conditions not playing ball, we had to redo some lines, where the Massane mission was attached to.

Redo in France and first accquisition in Massane

After the partially successfull mision on the day before, some lines needed to be redone to avoid couds and shadows on the images. In addition, we received a slot for the Massane mission. After the redo of the Puéchabon missions, N53W headed towards Massane mission area, where again two different companies where doing aeraial survey/imaging flights. One of them were our Swiss collegues from Swiss Flight Services. Luckily our arrival was timed in such a way, that the other aircrafts cleared the air space where we intended to conduct our hyperspectral imaging mission. Unfortunately, the weather conditions did not play in our favour, clouds were building up and causing shadows over the mission area.

Lake of Geneva — first successfull imaging

With the weather conditions improving in Switzerland, the next mission over the lake of Geneva was flown. On this mission we had some minor fogging issues with the window. This time however, they did not affect the mission to much, because the window cleared up after a short while. To give the window enough time to clear up, the aircraft flew a small holding patter in the South East of the mission area. With a clear window, the mission over lake of Geneva was successfully completed. On the way back to LSMD two IAP sites in West Switzerland were imaged. At the mission target in proximity to Yverdon-les-Bains, the line had to be redone because the line was accquired outside of the optimal geographical boundaries. The accquisition occured outside of the tollerance, because the pilots had to manouver around paragliders. On the second attempt, the line was imaged correctly.

Lausanne and Geneva Mission

The day before the meeting of Biden and Putin in Geneva we flew our missions in Lausanne and Geneva. In Lausanne, we overflew the buildings of EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne), where the misson goal was to fly a pattern which allows to perform a geometric calibration on AVIRIS NG. This mission was flown on a Sunday at the shore of the lake of Geneva, which was full with sailing- and motor boats cruising around - it was a splendid day after some time in the rain and the clouds. After the mission in Lausanne we headed to Geneva and descended to the mission altitude at FL050 and imaged the South of the city. Because the misison area was crossing the departure route of LSGG (Genève) we had to fly a holding pattern to make the way clear for comercial flights on the outbound route. After completing the Geneva mission we headed back direction LSZH and intended to image Hoelstein and Oensingen. However, after we started to image the first line in Hoelstein, clouds where thikening and made a successfull imaging impossible. Before returining to the base, we imaged the Laegeren site in the west of Zurich.

Tight plans which worked out somehow

For this mission day, our organisation skills where tested. In the morning two missions in Southern Germany where flown. First, the mission in Passau Bavaria was flown under very good conditions, the skeyes where clear and no other aircrafts were in the same area. Thereafter, the mission area covering the Bavarian National Park. After this rather large mission was completed, the aircraft had to head back to LSMD to refuel. While the aircraft was on the way back to Dübendorf, a rental car was organized and brought to LSMD. There, the crews had to switch, in order to make sure that all operator seats on N53W where occupied and enough personell was in the field to take spectral ground control points (SGCP) for the Jura Park mission. While N53W was refueled two of our team headed out to the Jura Park site to take those SGCPs during the aircraft overfly. Unfortunately, that day an accident ocurred on the highway between Zurich and Bern, causing traffic congestion and detours. After a nerve wrecking drive from Dübendorf to Jura Park, the field team arrived just a tiny bit to late. N53W was overflying flight line 5, where it was planned to set up the tarps (large white reference pannel which is used to calibrate the image) and was over head the position when the rental car with the field team on board was just approaching the site. Nevertheless, the field team set up the tarps and started the measurements before N53W completed the procedure turn and lined up for line six. With this we still had the hope that the tarps are visible in that part of line six which overlaps with line five. The quick set up was possible because the field team had the great idea to start the ASD field spectrometer up on the way to the target area. With this move, the spectrometer had enough time to warm up to the optimum operational temperature, what made the imediate operation and measurements in the field possible.

Tour de Suisse

After a long period of bad weather in Switzerland we had finally a bit of summer weather here and there. We tried to benefit from this opportunitiy the best possible way. On this mission day the target area over the lake of Geneva was flown the second time in the 2021 AVIRIS NG campaign. This time it was a special mission, from the coordination stage up to the execution stage. It was the day when the world was looking to Geneva, where Biden and Putin where meeting. Like every time, the Pilots called the ATC supervisor in Geneva to coordinate our mission for that day. We thought of giving it a try to fly our mission over the lake of Geneva, because it was located outside of the exclusion zone set up around Geneva. When the pilots asked for coordination of our mission, the ATC supervisor started laughing straight out and asked our pilot if he knew what was going on that day! After a nice laugh he called the airforce coordinator who had to laugh even harder we where told. But in the end we got the clearance for our mission, right after Putin arrived in Geneva. From there we continued to Basel, picked up as many lines as possible, before we headed to Hoelstein and Oensingen. After completing those missions N53W returned home to LSMD.

Mission in Calabria and on Sicily

One day after the Vulcano Mt. Etna on Sicily errupted, N53W headed South from LSZH flying to LIRN (Napoli Capodichino Airport), where we had to refuel after the first transfer flight from LSZH. With the aircraft fully fuled we headed to the first mission area in Calabria. There we overflew a mountain ridge in the national parc of Pollino. Thereafter, we continued to the next mission area at the Southern slope of Mt. Etna. However on the way to our mission area the pilots where contacting ATC Catagna to get the vectors to the mission area (the Mt. Etna area was filed as IFR flight). However, the air traffic controller on duty did not know we where coming and was not informed about our mission, unlike our pilots where told by the ATC coordinator in Rome in the morning before we left LSZH. Therefore, we decided to headed direction Madonia and passed Mt. Etna in the North. After passing Mt. Etna the air traffic controller offered our pilots to cancel the IFR flight and to continue VFR (flying aftger visual flight rules, where no separation by a ATC controller is necessary), what we did. The conditions were good enough to fly visually and no NOTAMS (NOtice To AirMan) was issued concerning the erruption and activity of Mt. Etna. The flight along the Southern solope of Mt. Etna was very bumpy, with Northerly winds blowing across the mountain top and the air masses flowing into the valley following a gentle slope, what caused eddie turbulences in the air. Flying through those wakes, the aircraft was tossed around like a play ball. Most fascinating was to experince how the mountain was causing the eddi turbulences; as soon as we truned away from the mountain to perform our procedure turn onto the next line, the air was calm again. Following this fair bit of mountain flying (the smoking moutain top as at line of sight) we were heading to Madonia, before we had to fly back to Naples, overflying Palermo. In Naples a second technical stop was necessary to refuel the aricraft before transfering back to LSZH.

Last missions in Italy

Today we did another round in Italy. This time we stayed in the North of Italy and completed the missions in Jolanda di Savoia and in Bracciano, before the aircraft returned back to LSMD. With this mission the missions in Italy are completed and all missions are off our target list. Because nothing special did occur the report is rather short.

Mission in Spain - the first monster

In order to be able to fly this mission, we needed to have two hard crew rest days to not exceed the maximum weekly duty time of our pilots. One crew rest day neede to be before the mission to reset the clock counting the duty hours and one needed to be after the mission to restet the clock again to be able fly the next missions. Otherwise a to little amount of time would have been left to complete the planned missions. Anyway, the mission was so long and the transfer from Zurich to Sevilla and back so long, that N53W needed to leave Zurich at the earliest opportunity - 0400Z in this case. This meant, the aircraft had to be transferred to LSZH, because in LSMD operations are only possible from 0600Z. In addition the flight took place on a Friday, hence the aircraft was transferred to LSZH on a Thursday. To operate this flight we had to find another hangar to park our aircraft, because the usual handler was only able to accomodate N53W from Friday evening to Monday morning. Therefore, N53W was hangared at a different place but hadled by the same company.
On this Friday morning the aircraft and the crew left Zurich very early in the morning for a 4.25 houres flight to Sevilla in Southern Spain. Once arrived, N53W was refuelled and left the airport for a 4.5 houres immaging flight over Rio Tinto, Aznalcolar and Doñona. On this mission, first the high altitude missions where flown, before all the low level missions where completed. One thing went badly wrong on this mission, which could not be fixed in Spain and even not in flight. The air conditioning broke, what caused the temperatures on board to rise to 46°C. After landing in Sevilla to refuel the airceraft for the returnflight the crew felt some reliefe getting out of the aircraft into the fresh 35°C air temperature outside of the aircraft.
The return flight was a bit quicker than the outbound flight, with 3.75 houres of flight time. On the way home N53W took advantage of favourable wind conditions carrying the aircraft back home a bit faster. After this flight the first phase maintenance activities started in Zurich, which have to be carried out every 50 flight hours.

Last mission in Spain- the centre and the North

After a couple of days, N53W was ready to go on a mission again. This time it was not necessary to get out of the hangar and flying as early as we had to do on the Sevilla sortie. The aircrew and the aircraft left LSMD at a more normal time and transferred to Madrid. On the way there, the mission in Zaragoza was flown where an area of Beech trees was overflown. In Madrid the aircraft was refuelde to fly the missions in Camarena (high alt and low altitude but only corea area lines). Subsequently, the pilots had to think about the inbound flight to LSZH, because even after this rather short and uneventfull mission N53W arrived after 1500Z when the tower in LSMD was closed. Today however wee had a bit of luck and the handling agent's hangar where we usually parked our aircraft had enough space free that day to accomodata N53W.

Transferring N53W form LSMD to LSZH - Training flight for UZH personel on ANG

Todays flight was full house, eventhough it was a short hop from LSMD to LSZH. Two members of the RSL flight operations team got their trainings on their respective newly assigned positions on board N53W. One of them got a training on the AVIRIS NG operator's seat, while the other member joining the flight operations got the first live intro to the navigator position. However, we are a nice and collegial team, so both the team members got the instructions — we shared the work load. Thankfully this was the longest transfer of N53w, where we flew past Winterthur before lining up on the downwind leg of runway 14 in LSZH and thus got enought time to familiarize ourselfes with the new positions assigned.

Grand tour in Switzerland

The next day the weather conditions in Switzerland allowed to fly a mission in Gruyere on the last possible day. Following the mission in Gruyere we attached some targets of opportunity along the way back home to Zurich. The first mission flown in vicinity of Interlaken was realy spectacular and needed to be addapted before departure. The single flight line was planned to be flown N — S to avoid BRDF problems in the image. However, with the steep terrain around the lake of Thun we had to change the orientation of the flight strip to a more NW — SE direction. With this orientation the aircraft was following the terrain and thus avoiding dangerous situations. However, over this mission area the pilots where busyer than usual, N53W was flying in the middle of some paragliders which where enjoying the nice weather on that weekend too. After completing the mission the pilots wanted to get out of that area as quick as possible and manouvered the aircraft quickly to higher altitudes where no paragliders are found. Before landing in Zurich one more mission was flown in the vicinity of Wohlen. The subsequent approach to LSZH was one of the most special ever seen in LSZH. N53W sneaked through between the mountain ridge West of LSZH (Laegeren) and the airport on a sort of downwind leg, which actually was pretty close to the runway. Approximately 1.6nm North of the runway threshold the pilots turned the aircraft onto the base leg before turing on to the short final and touching down on runway 14.

Wick SCO, and Witham Woods and London GBR - The mission we spent all karma points on

To make this mission a success we used up all our karma points pretty sure. Let's start at the very beginning. One of the missions on the ESA catalogue was at the most Northerly tip of Shotish mainland (close to John O'Groats). However, for this mission at least one overnight stay outside of Switzerland. In addition, to split costs, the mission in Scotland was combined with two missions in England and a bunch of missions in Belgium. The weather in Scotland was very Scotish, what meant it was changeable. However, in mission control a window of acceptable cloud free weather was forseen for that day, why we decided to fly the mission. In the morning N53W left LSDM for Scotland and headed via Germany, the Netherlands and the Northsea to Scotalnd. Once arrived, the mission was flown from East to West. Because of some clouds present, the three Westermoast lines where flown emediately after completing the first imaging round. Shortly after completing the mission over Flow Country, N53W headed over to Wick for a technical stop to refuel the aircraft. With fuel tanks the aircraft was transferred to Birmingham to be closer to the next missions planned for the next day. Because of the refuelling stop in Wick, N53W was officially on a domestic flight within GB. After arrival in Birmingham, the crews had a well diserved break.
The next day two missions were flown in England. First the mission close to Oxford was flown, where the forrests in Witham woods were imamged. Thereafter, the aircraft worked its way up to higher altitudes to overfly the city of London and image all areas of interest in the city with a GSD of 9m. Thanks to the great support of the British CAA these missions were planned, coordinated an flown quite easily. With the London mission, the British missions were completed and N53W returned back to Brimingham were the crew got a well diserved rest. The next day N53W left Great Britain, heading for Belgium, where missions for the University of Zurich and VITO were planned to be flowm. With a bad weather front in the back following the aircraft, a fair ammount of missions was flown, including Antwerp harbour. Some of them had to be redone on that same day, before the aircraft was heading back to Zurich. Actually the idea was to add another over night stay in Belgium, but that seemed to be a bit difficult because the crew apparently did not look like a crew to the customs officers in Antwerp. Therefore the missions not flown on that day where flown from Zurich the next day.
While the aircraft was in Scotland, the entire RSL flight ops team was bussy. Two members where on board the aircraft operating ANG, while other two where bussy in mission controll, comunicating with the field teams. In addition, two of our team had to attend the IGARSS 2021 meeting which was held online, and present the paper they intend to publish in the next IEEE procedings.

Belgium completed

On this beautiful day, N53W was sent to Belgium again. On this mission the target areas close to Bruxelles, in the centre of Belgium where imaged. For the biggest mission, over Leuven to the East of Bruxelles, it was not clear if we will recieve the allowance to fly. This because the mission crossed the approach and departure to and from Bruxelles international airport. This meant our mission was depending on the selected operation layout of the day in Bruxelles. Luckily ATC decided to depart direction West and to guide the approaches from the East. With this layout, the ATC controller were able to sparate our flight from inbound aircrafts better than with outbound flights and we thus got the clearance to fly the mission. After completing the big mission, we immaged a patch of Beech trees in the South of Bruxelles in the Sonian forest. After that N53W retruned back to LSZH.

First attempt in Hunsrück - nice try

After a couple of days of intensive rain fall over Switzerland and Germany and equally intensive houres in the office, we figured out a way how to extend the campain till mid August. However, at some point, luckily the weather cleared up a bit and we thought of having a chance to fly the mission in Hunsrück and pick up some lines in Basel on the way home. However, it was quite a fight to get the permissions and to get the mission coordinated with ATC in Germany. After multiple phone calls we got the permission to fly all lines outside of the active restriction zone. On a beautiful Thursday morning N53W headed out to Hunsrück but encountered a small problem yet again. A fix somewhere over Luxembourg was not properly coordinated with the Louxembourgian ATC. That is the reason why we had todo a couple of circles in the sky over Basel until the difficulties where sorted. With the flight plan issues sorted our journey continued and we arrived more or less as schedulled in Hunsrück where almost no clouds where visible, we had SKC over the mission area. On approach we where scanning the sky for any clouds and spotted nothing but one tiny cloud outside our mission area. With a sigh of relieve, our pilot said out loud what everyone in the aricraft thought, we got lucky today. Well, Murphy was listening and with a blink of an eye clouds built up over the entire area of interest and we sat in the middle of one of them clouds. Because we were flying VFR we had to climb above the cloud layer imediately. Climbing out of the clouds we realized that it was even not worth waiting for any improvemens. Consequently our aircraft did a 180° turn and we headed back direction Switzerland and Basel where we completed the lines we were able to collect any data. In Basel we found very calm air and very helpfull and cooperative ATC controller who did a splendid job to accomodate our missions into the actuall traffic situation. Whit the missions completed, we headed back home to land on LSMD before the airbase closed during lunch break.
That was the moment to refuel and get the aircraft ready for an exciting afternoon sortie over the Swiss alps, where we intended to meet a fighet jet of the Swiss air force which should have taken some air to air images of our aircraft. This would have been a nice air ident exercies for the Swiss airforce and a great opportunity for us to get some nice pictures of our aircraft flying above the alps. Flying to the meeting point we encountered first small then bigger and bigger clouds. This made the operation somewhat difficult, because we should have been flying the mission at low altitude under visual flight rules. However, with the clouds hanging low over the mountains we decided to return home to LSMD, without meeting the airforce aricraft and without completing the air ident.

Second attempt in Hunsrück - an even nicer try

The next day the great tour of phone calls with the German ATC started from scratch, to try to understand if and where we can fly in Hunsrück - the area of interest is in the middle of a restricted area which is active during our operation houres. In the end we somehow managed to get the clearance for the most prioritized flight line. However, because this is a special mission this year where very little till anything went off without a hickup. N53W left LSMD direction Hunsrück. On approaching the mission area, we had once again some troubles with ATC coordination, wherefore N53W had to do a fair bit of holding over Luxembourg. In the afternoon sortie N53W went to the South Western corner of the Canton Vallais, to overfly the Val d'Arpette. This mission we had to abort because of to many clouds causing tons of shadows on the images. After flying three lines. N53W continued towards the Northern part of Canton Ticino. There we completed successfully the mission over Lago Ritom. On the way home we wanted to try to fly Davos too, what was not possible at that moment any more, because we ran out of time and thus landed spot on in Dübendorf, before the tower closed for the day.

EMPA & UZH missions in Romania

Being in a time of heavy rain falls, the aircraft was parked for quite some time in LSMD. However, after a long and painful process to get permissions to overfly and image in Romania, we managed to get the necessary permissions and the weather in Romania seemed to play ball just at the end of Julyn just when the permission was about to expire. Knowing that this was the only opportunity to get the missions in Romania done. In addition the timing was perfectly right finincially, because after the Romania mission all available foundings would have been used up and the aircraft was returned to NASA.
On the first day we transferred the aircraft from Dübendorf to Bucharest, where we set up our base for the mission. The departure occured on a rainy day, with tons of clouds in different layers of the atmosphere. This made the departure from LSMD quite special, because we had to climb through these different cloud layers, where the most fun was where the aircraft was climbing trough a snow flurry. After climbing out we experienced a smooth and awesome flight, in which we had to avoid Serbia and Serbian air space with a routing via Hungary, which was really hazy, what I did not expect knowing that Hungary is in a more continental climate. The hangar in Bucharest was beautiful and the staff was amazingly helpful in accommodating our aircraft and our selves. N53W was parked in the same hangar as the INCAS aircrafts which do laser scanning on one aircraft (Beech Super King Air 90) and infrared and rgb on another aircraft (Britten Norman Islander BN-2). The INCAS crew, especially one of their pilots helped us with getting all the necessary documents ready and the paperwork done to make sure every member of our team was accredited as crew member of N53W. After a long day, he helped us getting a taxi to our hotel, where we had dinner and started preparations for the next day. That night we sat under quite some thunderstorms, we over took over Hungary on the way to Bucharest. Luckily, the next morning the skyes where clear and we where able to fly our missions in the South of Romania.
On mission day one we were quite productive and imaged almost all lines in good conditions, only a feew where left over or had to be redone because of clouds over the scenery. Initially we had a fair bit of delay, because getting through security controll was way more difficult than expected, despite the paper work we were doing the evening before. Luckily the pilot we met the day before was still assisting us with the security and FBO personel to get us to our aircraft and on our mission as quickly as possible. Luckily our aircraft was refuelled by our handling agent the evening we arrived at LRBS, wherefore we only had to pull the aircraft out of the hangar once we got there. On that day we completed a total of 19 lines under very smooth and calm conditions. N53W was happily sipping fuel and flying us around in South Romania. Unfortunately the satellite coverage in Romania seemed to be poor, we had only sporadically the chance to get in touch with mission control back home in Zurich, most of the time the IRIDIUM antenna was blinking read, as if she was trying to laugh at us. In the evening we were invited for dinner by INCAS scientists and had the chance to meet all the people of INCAS with whom we were coordinating this mission approval process.
The next day we intended to get out from LRBS earlier than the day before, we really hope all parties involved understood by then that we are all crew members of N53W and are on a awesome mission. Luckily security controll went way quicker than the day before and we had time to cary out some photo missions with the INCAS folks around our and their aircrafts. After a short confusion about the order at which we wanted to fly the missions between mission control and the flight crew, we managed to fly all missions planned for that day. It even took a bit of negotiation skills of our captain to change the filed flight plan in flight and to thus invers the order in which we wanted to fly our missions. Thanks to the comunication and negotiation skills of our captain we first flew the Sinca forest missio for UZH and cleaned up the missions in Southern Romania. Over Sinca forest we took the right decision to start in the west and work our way eastwards. During our mission we saw clouds building on the lines we previously flew, while the current and coming lines were clear. At dinner we put our brains together to come up with a solution for the transfer back to LSZH, what we expected to be an adventure for itself.
On the last moring we went to the airport so early, the breakfast was not served at the hotel and the sun was just about to rise when we got to the airport. Before we boarded the aircraft we did some final group photos with the INCAS folks and said good bye. On the way home we had to proof to have a good feeling for timing. First we flew North to Translivania, where we imaged a bunch of lines and some transects of them. This was necessary, because on the way home two huge thunderstorm cells where building up and belting together to build a huge wall across Hungary. Because of permission restrictions, Hungary would have been our only option to fly home to Zurich. Therefore, we had to squeeze ourselfes thorugh the two rising and growing thunderstorm cells. Thanks to our skilled pilots we managed to get home safe and sound. However, it was strange to push the aircraft into the hangar of our handling agent in Zurich, knowing that the SBG and CHIME missions were over at that precise moment.
A couple of days later we indeed had to say good bye to our new friends we found at Dynamic Aviation and at NASA JPL, the aircraft left for Iceland where NASA had a new mission to complete before joining Delta - X in Louisiana.