Page 8 - Volume 12 Number 1

The external instrumentation visible on N2UW in this photo includes nose boom, radar mirror and wing tip cloud probe pods. (PHOTO COURTESY OF VANDA GRUBIŠI)
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for weather modification cloud verification studies through the mid-1980s. It has been heavily modified with a nose boom, large ports for downward viewing using radar and lidar, and many probe locations including the wing tips, where a factory-installed modification was made for fuel tanks but instead of tanks they have mounted instruments.
“The sophistication of the aircraft and instrumentation had increased so much by that time that the faculty realized it could not on its own continue to support the King Air at the high level it had attained,” Rodi said. “The solution was found in 1987 when UW negotiated a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to make the Wyoming King Air available as a national facility. The Wyoming Cloud Radar was added to the agreement in 2004, the Wyoming Cloud Lidar was added in 2010, and we are presently in the seventh NSF/UW cooperative agreement.
NSF-supported scientists are eligible to apply for deployment of these facilities.”
Since the cooperative agreement began in 1988, N2UW has supported about 75 projects for the atmospheric sciences community in conjunction with an array of universities and principal investigators.
“We also have a close relationship with the Research Aviation Facility at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, which operates a C-130 and Gulfstream V under NSF support,” Rodi said.
These assets are part of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Lower Atmospheric Observing Facilities program. The program oversees a suite of research platforms that are called national facilities and available for use by NSF-funded scientists for research on a wide range of atmospheric phenomena, from severe weather to drought to air quality.
N2UW prepares for one of 24 flights to conduct four- to eight- hour intensive observation periods in Idaho in 2017. UW led the SNOWIE Project (Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Clouds – the Idaho Experiment), which involved collecting measurements to understand the impact of silver iodide released in the clouds. The project was in conjunction with Idaho Power, which is interested in putting more snow on the ground in the mountains, which leads to more water in the rivers and, ultimately, more power generation capability throughout the year.
6 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
JANUARY 2018