Atmospheric research is reaching new heights
Yesterday, the 3rd of August, was a very busy day for the ICE-3 research team. The researchers woke up before the sunrise to attend the moving of the Zeppelin “Hugo Eckener” out of the hangar for a test flight. The spectacular operation, which took place at 6:45 AM, required specific weather conditions (very little wind) to allow this complex maneuver to be operated by the ground crew.
Following this exciting experience, a press conference was held at 11 AM, during which Prof. Dr. Anke Nölscher, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Eva Pfannerstill and Dr. Georgios Gkatzelis presented the CC-FLUX project to a crowd of curious and enthusiastic journalists besides the CEO of Zeppelin, Eckhard Breuer and the mayor of Mülheim an der Ruhr, Marc Buchholz. Many articles were published by RTL, WDR and Die Zeit.
After thorough preparation of the instruments, Hugo finally took off at 13:42 with our team leader Georgios Gkatzelis and PhD student Biplob Dey on board. This short flight aimed to observe how the instruments behave under flight conditions (especially under such high temperatures!) and how to split the operations between the ground and flight operators. Unfortunately, the heatwave got the better of the instruments, and the team learnt from this experience to improve the flying conditions and find ways to cool down the gondola.
We are all looking forward to flying on Thursday to Dortmund to measure urban VOCs!