The AIDA-HALO project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG as part of the priority program 1294: “atmosphere and earth system research with the HALO (High Altitude and Long Range) research aircraft”

 picture: DLR, (CC-BY 3.0)

Objective:
Instruments that are developed for the HALO research aircraft are often newly developed prototypes or adapted versions of already established instruments. There is a big interest in testing these instruments prior to their actual use during costly flight campaigns. This way, valuable experience in handling of the instruments and in the data acquisition can be gathered and necessary instrument modifications can be identified.
Also, it is of scientific interest to compare the output of different instruments that are built to measure similar atmospheric properties. This helps in identifying the strength and shortcomings of the various instrument types and in the interpretation of the evaluated data.
Within the AIDA (Aerosol Interaction and Dynamics in the Atmosphere) aerosol and cloud chamber the full range of water mixing ratios and relative humidities of the atmosphere reached by the HALO aircraft can be simulated. In parallel to the local AIDA instrumentation, it is possible to connect various instruments originally designed for flight missions. This way, instrument test, inter-comparison and calibration under different static or dynamic conditions is possible.

Activities:
Since 2007 several international campaigns have been organized that focused on HALO instrument test and inter-comparison in parallel to their scientific objective. Also, the findings of those experiments have been discussed and analyzed during workshops organized by the IMK-AAF.

Our activities within the DFG SPP 1294 are listed below:
10/2008 ACI-02 campaign on ice nuclei and ice residual particles
12/2008 HALO-02 campaign on cloud droplet and cloud probes
06/2009 HALO-03 campaign on aerosol instruments
10/2009 ACI-03 campaign on ice nuclei and ice residual particles, aerosol instruments, and cloud droplet and cloud probes
10/2009 SOOT-11 campaign on aerosol instruments
12/2009 HALO-04 campaign on water vapor instruments
03/2010 BIO-05 campaign on ice nuclei and ice residual particles, aerosol instruments, and cloud droplet and cloud probes
12/2010 data-workshop on ACI-03  campaign
05/2011 BIO-06 campaign on ice nuclei and ice residual particles
06/2010 HALO-05 campaign on water vapor instruments
01/2011 HALO-06 campaign on cloud droplet and cloud probes and cloud particle microphysics
11/2011   data-workshop on BIO-05 and BIO-06 campaign
02/2012  data-workshop on HALO-02 and HALO-06 campaign
03/2012  participation on the SPP Statuskolloquium in Dresden
planned:
07/2012 campaign on ice nuclei and ice residual particles and aerosol instruments
12/2012 campaign on cloud droplet and cloud probes