Campaign logbook
Contents
Campaign logbook¶
Monday 6th October¶
The first scientific flights of AB2CD took place today. At 13:30 LT, SAFIRE ATR42 took-off for a 2 hour flight targeting industrial emissions over the Gulf of Fos-sur-mer. The raster pattern was flown at FL170 (5 000m), with each leg flown twice. Both lidars (CHARM-F and LiVe) performed well with a lot of signals captured in a well-defined channel of strong wind of about 10 m/s.
The ATR42 (blue) flying the selected flight plan (green) as seen on the Planet screen over the Gulf of Fos-sur-mer in order to catch the expected gas plume as simulated by HYSPLIT… at the overpassing time of Sentinel-5P (yellow track)
The gulf of Fos-sur-mer, industrial site and tanks arrival © V. Douet, 2025
The return journey was used to fly at a lower altitude in order to check LiVe performances and SNR closer to the ground. First analysis revealed quite a clean atmosphere, potentially stemming from the heavy rain from the previous days.
Views around Fos-sur-mer © V. Douet, 2025
A very succesful first scientific flight of the ATR-42 … that lead to the first team picture of a happy crew!
The ATR42 team in front of the research aircraft after landing from the first scientific flight. Team includes SAFIRE, DLR, ONERA and LMD.
Meanwhile in Madrid, Gerfaut Dynamic WT9 performed its first test flight in the area. A great opportunity to discover the area and define the future flight plans. A clear methane plume was observed South-West of Madrid.
Gerfaut Dynamic WT9 taking off from Madrid airport with a Picarro 2301 onboard, and views from the cockpit © G. Gavin, 2025
After a cloudy morning, the 2 EM27/SUN installed at UCM and ECHEGARAY measured total columns of gases in the afternoon.