Last AMMA flight!

Yesterday was the last AMMA flight. And my last flight till 2008 at the earliest. We did a double flight with afternoon and then one in the early evening.


After a dodgy start, which involved Imodium and a couple of toilet breaks (nasty.. :), I managed to measure OH and HO₂ for the first flight. It was really interesting to see how life is tied to the river in the Sahel regions. Water really does control life out here...


And I thought everything was going well for the second till the laser died on take-off. I was gutted. An over-compliance error came up for the YAG. How can something be OVER-COMPLIANT!! Stupid thing. Well it has happened before so I wracked my brain to try and remember what Trev did the last time. I fiddled around with stuff and finally got the laser working again. The only problem was that the power was half what it was pre-take off and the timing was going insane!! So I made an excutive decision and turned the laser and pumps off till the cabin temp dropped 5oC to 30oC. I've come to the conclusion that the laser can't take temps over 30oC. After a ten minute break to let me and the laser cool down I tried again and what do you know. Success! I gave up on measuring OH tho as the power was so low and dumped the whole lot into the HO₂ cell. I could even see the HO₂ at night which was reassuring.

After 9 hours of standing around trying to measure HO₂ in +30oC heat I missed the after last flight party and collapsed into bed. It's not like me to miss a party but sometimes there's only so far you can push it... But at least I got to take a few photos of pretty clouds while waiting for the laser to cool.

Scarily close planes on Flight B234

Yesterday was the aircraft intercomparison.

We flew really close to the German Falcon

the French Falcon

and the French ATR.


It was really cool, especially as the German Falcon flashed us it's belly before flying away!

My first solo flight!

Well I managed not to break the laser on my first solo flight.







Unfortunately the same can't be said of the poor cylinder. I was worried about not closing the cylinder head properly and I leaned a little too hard... I didn't think I was strong enough but I managed to shear the top nut off. Oh well at least we can open it again, even if it now takes an adjustable spanner and a lot of trouble. I guess it's just one more thing to sort out when I get back.

On the plus side, I did manage to measure HO₂ for the whole flight. There wasn't enough power to measure OH as well so we went with the HO₂ on it's own. I don't know how the data looks yet but it seemed good at the time so I'm looking forward to checking it all out...

Silly o'clock flights

Well my sleep pattern is well and truely fecked at the moment. We have our second dawn patrol flight this morning and thankfully it will be the last one. Trev and I flew yesterday and actually measured some HO2 before the laser died. Hopefully there will be enough laser power in a few mins to make it worth flying. If not it's another night's sleep wasted and I'll be very annoyed. It's supposed to be my first solo flight too. But don't worry. If Trev thought the laser was up to measuring anything I wouldn't be doing it on my own. But at this stage there's nothing left to break so I'm just going for the experience.

But this getting up at 2.30 am after 4 hours sleep can only be managed so long before I collapse. I'm definitely looking forward to chilling out for a few days when I get home...

The French AMMA group had a dinner last night. We were told about it yesterday afternoon. Not much good to me when we had a 5.30 am take off and had to be up at 2.30 to catch a bus. Oh well, I suppose it's the thought that counts. I think...

Morning flight

Our last flight was a laser disaster. Not sure exactly why tho. Hmm. Should be interesting to see if we can measure on this last week of flights.

On the positive side, Perca got their gases after a 4 week delay and they can now measure!! The two Perca boys have been really down since they arrived cos they haven't been able to do anything. I would've gone nuts by now. But they cos their gases yesterday and you couldn't have seen two happier men!! If only we could get our laser working properly. It would be brill to get both measuring together.

I'm really struggling with this 03.30 start. Somehow the 0130 was easier but I suppose I've only got a week left so it's worth it. The laser isn't stepping at the moment and I'm just about to have a hissy fit. I'm exhausted, hungry and the laser gods think it's funny to make me suffer. It's not fair!! The really annoying thing is that the laser power is really good. We just can't get it to step over the wavelengths we need. Do you think a few sacrifices to the laser gods would help?

At this hour of the morning anything is possible...

Sleep patterns?

No dawn flight but my body doesn't seem to realize it yet. I ended up sleeping all day yesterday as I thought we were doing a dawn flight last night/this morning. Anyway I was wrecked from the night before. That was cancelled but I couldn't sleep last night, which means I'm now really struggling with the early morning. How long does it take to reset a sleep pattern?

I've no problem doing all this early flight/ no early flight lark tho. The night->morning transition would be really interestin to see and is definitely worth a little sleep disruption. That said, there's only so much of this I can take before I need an entire day in bed. I've only been outside the hotel to eat in the evenings and go to the airport in the past week. Kinda sad, isn't it?

Dawn Flight

Well I'm a bit exhausted but Cedric and I are at the airport getting ready for a
night-> dawn-> morning flight. The last flight went really well. We made the first measurements of OH AND HO2 over Cotonou, the Bay of Guinea and Lagos, an African MegaCity. That has to be good. All I have to do now is figure out what all this data means!! Well we've never had data before so I'm working a little blind. I guess it'll just involve some thought.

The internet's been down a good bit lately so I'll reply to people when I get a chance. I'm not ignoring you!!