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?