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!!

African weather and temperamental lasers

Well the dawn patrol was cancelled about 4 hours into the warm up because we didn't get the right weather. I suppose figuring out the weather is most of the reason we're here so I'm not really annoyed. I am a little disapppointed though. After 2 hours of the laser having a strop (stupid stepper motor) and me trying everything under the moon to get it going, I decided to go off in a strop and left it for a while to think of what to do. I come back 20 mins later and the stupid thing is working. Go figure. It's actually scary how much my mood is tied to a stupid unreliable laser! But it didn't really matter cos 30 mins later the whole thing was called off. I'm struggling to stay awake now but there is a brief at 11 and we're going to try and do the whole thing all over again tomorrow.

Should be interesting!!

What a difference a day makes (in Africa)

Yesterday I was annoyed with the world (particularly FAGE) and ready to swing for something. Thankfully I just hammered the life out of a drum instead.

Today I'm much chirpier. I may have a cold but FAGE is flying! Because of the cold I can't fly. Instead I'm waiting at the airport to see how Trev got on. We are attempting to measure both OH and HO2 today. Last night there was the possibility of a major storm (a Mesoscale Convective System - MCS) so we had a cloud chasing flight planned. I woke up at 5.30 am expecting a phone call to prep the aircraft. Instead the storm blew itself out so we were here at 10 am. I'm still tired from waking up so early though. Oh well... At least FAGE flew today!!

Nothing is ever simple with a laser. But at least there are hippos!

We're having laser issues again. At this stage I'm ready to cry!! After almost a week of no chemistry flights (while waiting for gases to arrive from various corrupt African nations) the stepper motor has decided to have a wobbley. It's been stroppy before but it sorted itself out on its own. We're waiting for aircraft to return now to see if it's decided to cop itself on again. If not, I'm throwing a strop myself and going out to get hammered. Ok, maybe not. I guess it'll just be a late night tonight and a long day tomorrow but i'd prefer to be measuring something!!

On Wednesday we went to see the Hippos upriver. It was a scorching day tho and the hippos were barely moving above the water. They don't pose as nicely as the giraffes. But the locals are a lot more afraid of hippos than giraffes! Hippos kill more people in Africa every year, except for Malaria. It's a sobering thought when you are paddling along in a little timber pirogue. Especially when the slightest wave would sink you all. The side of the boat was about 3 cm above the river level. I was still more afraid of what I'd catch from the river than any animal attack... All the pics so far can be seen on the usual Niger photos page.

I've done some interesting shopping in Niger. We haven't had a chemistry flight in about a week so I've had time (between writing my report, of course :o) to go look around the city. The museum has lots of arty stuff and I want to go back before leaving to pick up some stuff. It's a LOT less insane than the markets. They are great fun but hectic. I really enjoy haggling. I know they won't sell anything at a loss but I don't want to rip anyone off here either so I have been paying what I think it's worth here. It's probably slightly above the locals price but I don't mind too much. In my enjoyment of haggling I even managed to buy an African drum! Now I have no idea how I am going to get it home but it's great fun to thump on when I'm felling frustrated with FAGE (that's a lot today!!) It's bound to be easier to get home than the Tuareg sword I drunkenly bought for £4 the other night. It's probably longer than my hurley at home so I make it about 36" long in a leather scabbard. I think it was supposed to be a Christmas present for my brother but I think it'll probably end up being a pressie for the customs officials. For £4 I can't really complain!!

Well the laser didn't survive the double flight. We had to pull out of the second flight at the last minute as the power just disapeared. Oh well. At least we got something from the first flight!

We're not flying today as the flight is focussing on vegetation and will be doing LOTS of low level flying. Tomorrow is focussing on the meteorology so I might even get some shopping done. All my other spare time is spent looked in my windowless room trying to analyse the data we have so far and writing my first year report. Well I haven't really had any time to do any of the report but I am going to have to soon.

I've decided I'm going on holidays after I get back from Niger. Surprisingly enough I am actually working fairly hard so I'll probably need it! So I'll head home for a while and then meet Camille in France for a few days. I've also said yes to going to Inda at new year's with Anoop. Now that should be good!! Kate, Alex and I are going to impose on Anoop's family for two weeks. I have a load of places I want to see but India is so big I'm probably not going to see half enough. I guess there's always the way back from Borneo in 2008...

Right, I have data to analyse (and pretty cloud and sunset photos to sort out). Till later...

Yesterday was quite a cool flight. We saw different OH above and below clouds and weird HO2 in the clouds. Now all I've got to do is figure out what it all means... I guess that's most of next year sorted out for me!!

I finally found Mat Evans' blog site. It has loads of pics of stuff so far and the odd interesting comment too.

We have a double flight today so it should be interesting to see if I (and the laser) can take the heat for that long. The front of the aircraft reaches about 35^o C in flight if we're doing a lot of low level flying. That means we have to be strapped in with a harness and can't move around. I couldn't take the heat last time and ended up with heat exhaustion (again). So our cunning plan now is to control the instrument from the nice cool back of the aircraft. The wonders of modern VNC.

I've put up a few photos of our trip to see the giraffes. They were amazing to watch! They are just so elegant. They really reminded me of the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. You know the ones with the really long necks? We first saw the giraffes from the road. There was a whole family of them just sauntering around. These giraffes were really relaxed around people. They are protected in the Park du W so they happily pose for all the photos. We spent a good while taking photos of them but afterwards I felt I spent too much time trying to get good photos and not enough time actually watching them. Oh well.
Our drivers were insisting that we leave the giraffes without going into the park itself when the game keepers arrived. They were none too happy! We finally did go into the park and paid our contribution to keeping the West African Giraffe breeding program alive. I was kind of glad to be honest. It looks like they need all the money they can get. Cedric had done a great job negotiating with the drivers to bring us to the park. I must say I'd be lost without him!

On another note, we've measured OH!! and seen HO2 at night! FOr anyone not up on why I'm actually in Africa, let me explain. I here with Trevor and Cedric to measure the concentration of OH and HO2 in the atmosphere. OH and HO2 are the chemicals that break down all the nasty pollution in the atmosphere. Here in Africa there's not too much pollution but there are a lot of chemicals given off by the trees and plants as you go towards the tropical rain forests. We're worked long and hard to get the instrument ready to measure and I think we've done it! I'm working on the data now but we're definitely measuring something!! YEY!!!

Coming to Africa for the first time has been an interesting experience. We flew out with Royal Air Maroc and it was actually quite nice. We even arrived with all our bags, unlike the poor people on the Air France flight who ended up waiting a week for their bags.
I was hoping to say I'd had a G&T in Casablanca but everything was shut at 11pm. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to go back again another time.

The hotel is nice with a stunning view over the River Niger from the terrace. The birds flying over are amazing and the fruit bats are massive! The hotel is about 15 mins from the airport where the 146 is based but the poverty we see in the way can be a little disturbing. I wasn't quite sure what the locals would think of us but they've been great most of the time! It's heartbreaking to see a polio victim coming up to you asking for money but we've been warned not to give anyone money between the hotel and the met office. Otherwise it'll turn into pure mayhem. We're organising to give stuff at the end tho so I'm hoping that will help them a little. We've walked to the supermarket a couple of times so far and I was worried we'd be surrounded by kids but they just smile at us and say bonjour a lot. I think I might even be beginning to get hte accent right, as everyone is saying other stuff to me after that. Pity I can't understand a word of French!! Oh well. That's what I get for learning German at school...

Right, I've a flight to get ready for. Hopefully things will go well this time. Our laser doesn't seem to like africa as much as I do. I'll try and get thru some of the pics soon. Till then here are a few tasters.

I finally have a fone in Africa! If you want to text me, email me on the usual address and I'll get back to you with the number.

The beginning

I'm down in Cranfield at the moment. Cedric, Trev and I were a little disheartened after we were kicked off the aircraft last night. We ended up not measuring anything on the first test flight and we were a bit miserable after. We went to the pub for dinner and couldn't even stomach a few pints! That's not like us! We all went to bed grumpy. Thankfully I think we're all begining to cheer up, but that'll depend on how things finish today. I suppose that's the joy of research!

Today we're trying to sort out a few laser issues. We use a tunable laser to make OH fluoresce. In practice that means having a diffraction grating that we can move to change the wavelength. I think the grating has decided it doesn't like me tho... It seems to be a little stuck at times. But only when I'm there. I drove two hours to get a Helium-Neon (HeNe) laser to check a couple of things out. But found it wasn't needed when I got back. Just my luck, huh?