EUROPEAN FACILITY FOR AIRBORNE RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND GEOSCIENCE

Final Report Summary - EUFAR (EUROPEAN FACILITY FOR AIRBORNE RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND GEOSCIENCE)

Executive Summary:
The EUFAR project (EUropean Facility for Airborne Research in Environmental and Geo-sciences) is an FP7 Integrating Activity of the European Commission (EC), bringing together 32 European legal entities, comprising 14 operators of airborne facilities operating 20 instrumented aircraft and providing access to 6 specialised instruments, and 18 institutions expert in airborne research. These entities are involved in 9 Networking Activities (N1 to N9), facilitating Transnational Access to 26 installations and 3 Joint Research Activities (JRAs) (cf. Tables 1 to 3 and Figure 1).

N1SAC – Scientific Advisory Committee: The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) successfully completed its planned objectives by providing the EUFAR Consortium with independent strategic recommendations on EUFAR objectives and long term developments.

N2TAC - Transnational Access Coordination: Transnational Access provides access to research aircraft in the EUFAR fleet to scientific users at institutions where they would not normally have access to such facilities through their regular funding. A broad range of activities has been supported in the two main application areas of in-situ atmospheric sampling and hyperspectral imaging of the land/sea surface. The outcomes are broadly in line with targets established at the start of the project.

N3FF – Future of the Fleet: N3FF collected and analysed information on the scientific demand for aircraft that are available in Europe, in terms of performance, identified gaps, and explored solutions for the optimum long-term development of airborne research infrastructures. The whitebook ‘Stratospheric Aircraft in Europe’ will be used for further negotiations and agreements with potential aircraft operators and funding agencies including the EC.

N4EWG – Expert Working Groups: N4EWG organised 10 EUFAR Expert Working Group workshops and 4 Expert Working Group meetings, and published a handbook on “Airborne Measurements for Environmental Research – Methods and Instruments” that was first distributed in Europe in April/May 2013, with nine chapters and 655 pages and contributions from 91 authors from 13 countries, most of whom are active members of the EUFAR EWGs.

N5ET - Education and Training: Five ET-TC training courses were organised: ADDRESSS (Hungary) and REFLEX (Spain) covered airborne hyperspectral remote sensing, while TETRAD (France), QAD (France) and SONATA (Italy) focused on airborne atmospheric research. In total, 100 participants (including a minimum of 12 university lecturers) out of 287 received applications were trained. The participants originated from 18 different EU member states or associated states. Only 28% of the participants originated from the countries - Germany, France and UK - operating the major airborne facilities. Beside the ET-TC training courses, 15 ET-EC proposals to join an existing campaign and one ET-VO proposal to visit an aircraft/instrument operator were supported.

N6SP - Standards and Protocols: N6SP provides recommendations for best practices and standards with regard to data handling and processing. In addition, N6SP maintains data processing toolboxes, all embedded within the EUFAR General Airborne Data-processing Software (EGADS). Furthermore, creators for INSPIRE conforming metadata and Airborne Science Mission Metadata (ASMM) are made available through N6SP to the EUFAR operators for wider circulation amongst their respective national user communities.

N7DB - Data Base: The database activity developed a central gateway to the 9.2TB data and supporting metadata collected by instrumented aircraft during EUFAR TA projects and training courses. Through this unique portal, which provides a dedicated archive for previously offline data and connection to the two pre-existing aircraft archives, valuable data from 154 flights/flightlines made by 12 aircraft for all 43 projects are now widely accessible.

N8EC – E-Communication: N8-EC aims at elaborating solutions on internet for the dissemination of the EUFAR information (aircraft, instruments, operators, publications, etc.), for facilitating the electronic submission and evaluation of Transnational Access, and Education and Training proposals, and for providing all EUFAR working groups with a secured domain for collaborative activities. The development of a new display of the planning of the EUFAR fleet online was one of the main achievements. The EUFAR website has been identified by the EUFAR Scientific Advisory Committee as the EUFAR project key window for the scientific community, with about 1770 active members, essentially researchers, registered in the database, versus 1000 at the beginning of the project.

N9SST – Sustainable Structure: With its key objective of promoting the development of a framework for the long term sustainability of EUFAR, no consensus has been reached within the EUFAR consortium about the creation of a sustainable legal structure due to lack of commitment of national funding institutions to provide Open Access to their facilities, following schemes similar to the EU supported Transnational Access.

JRA1 - DENCHAR: In JRA1 the focus was on the Development and Evaluation of Novel and Compact Hygrometer for Airborne Research (DENCHAR). New instruments based on new detection technologies (TDLAS, PAS, SAW) have been developed and/or extensively tested in the laboratory as well as in-flight on board of research aircraft. The new instruments have been proven to provide consistent and reliable airborne performance with overall uncertainties less than 10% in the water vapour volume mixing ratio occurring between surface and 8-12 km altitude.

JRA2 - HYQUAPRO: In JRA2 Uncertainty Propagation Analysis (UPA) was applied to airborne hyperspectral imagery. Quality Indicators/Layers and Data Descriptors (i.e. metadata) were identified for airborne hyperspectral imagery,tested and implemented at the various Processing and Archiving Facilities (PAF) involved. The HYperspectral SOil MApper (HYSOMA) toolbox which includes various validated soil algorithms was developed and made available through the EUFAR Toolbox. Water Quality algorithms including an optimised IOP model is made available through the EUFAR Toolbox.

JRA3 - ALIDS: In JRA3 an airborne optical spectrometer was developed to characterise the droplet size in clouds in the range 20 µm to 200 µm. The principle proposed in this project for drop sizing is currently referred to as Interferometric Laser Imaging Droplet Sizing (ILIDS).
MGT - Management of the Consortium: Through the MGT activity, 2 amendments to the contract were coordinated, 4 periodic reports were submitted to the EC, 6 General Assembly meetings and 5 Steering Committee meetings were organised, with an average attendance of 40 and 19 participants respectively. The EUFAR Office collectively managed the travel and subsistence costs for attendees at the management meetings and at the networking meetings, workshops, training courses, transnational access projects, and supported numerous dissemination activities.

Project Context and Objectives:
N1SAC – Scientific Advisory Committee is the interface with the community of users, for researchers to evaluate the EUFAR activities against their expectations and needs and prepare recommendations to the operators for the EUFAR activities to be user driven. In EUFAR FP6, the SAC did not reach the expected objectives. The management of this networking activity has therefore been revised in FP7: the SAC recommendations directly implemented by the EUFAR coordinator and chaired by a scientist fully independent from all EUFAR operators and has a long lasting experience in airborne research. The members were selected from eminent scientists already involved in strategic international scientific panels.

N2TAC – Transnational Access Coordination coordinated Transnational Access to research aircraft in the EUFAR fleet to scientific users at institutions where they would not normally have had access to such facilities through their regular funding. The funding was geared towards new users who had not previously used aircraft observations, but the main criterion for selection was scientific excellence. The latter was established through a system of peer-review, moderated by an independent User Group Selection Panel. A continuously-open call for proposals was advertised on the EUFAR website such that proposals could be passed for review and approval as efficiently as possible. This enabled aircraft operators to integrate TA projects into existing plans as simply as possible. The submission of proposals and the peer-review process were handled on-line on the EUFAR website. The TA budget was not pre-allocated to any particular aircraft although a nominal distribution across the fleet was made in order to establish targets for flight hours (520), projects (64) and scientific users (168). The typical size of a flight-hour allocation was 10-15. Whilst this was adequate for many of the hyperspectral imaging activities it was insufficient for many in-situ measurements. Hence the clustering of projects was encouraged, both with other TA projects and with other flight activities already supported by national funding. This clustering was intended to minimise the impact of transit flight costs, to build larger user groups in the field to promote interactions between scientists and to enable TA users to benefit from the existing nationally-funded flights.

N3FF – Future of the Fleet identified and documented the European user needs and the options for high-altitude carriers in the future. Currently, no stratospheric aircraft for the altitude range 15-20 km is part of the EUFAR fleet. Such aircraft are being used currently for research groups in Europe and elsewhere, and there is a clear demand for such aircraft in EUFAR in the coming years. The US as well as European researchers have prioritised research around the import mechanisms of tropospheric polluted air into the global stratosphere which is primarily taking place in the (sub-)tropical UTLS at altitudes well above 15km. The thermal tropopause is located at up to 18km in the relevant atmospheric domains, i.e. not accessible with regular research aircraft. All planned and envisaged research projects such as SEAC4ARS and ATTREX (both NASA activities) as well as StratoClim (currently proposed to the EC) feature high-altitude research platforms in their initial deployment plans. In ATTREX, another new option, the Global Hawk - an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – will be deployed in 2014 from Guam. So far, the EUFAR community expressed their wish to use classical research aircraft such as the Russian M55 Geophysica or the NASA ER-2 and WB57 for the next decade, but on longer timescales there is also a great interest in the long-range capabilities of the Global Hawk, a UAV recently used for pilot missions in the USA. All this information has been compiled in a whitebook which will be used for further decisions and negotiations with potential aircraft operators and funding agencies including the EC. Other potential gaps in the EUFAR fleet have also been identified and recommendations for the further improvement of the fleet have been put forward.

N4EWG – Expert Working Groups focused on two major tasks: (i) organise a series of EUFAR Expert Working Group (EWG) workshops, and (ii) publish a textbook on “Airborne Measurements for Environmental Research – Methods and Instruments”. Altogether 10 EWG workshops and 4 EWG meetings took place over the four year reporting period; respective result summaries were published on the EUFAR website. The book was published and first distributed in Europe in April/May 2013. It contains nine chapters occupying 655 pages,out of which, 104 pages contain an almost complete list of references on the subject of the book. 91 authors from 13 countries were involved as authors; most of whom are active members of the EUFAR EWGs. This clearly shows the integrating aspect of this book project within both the EUFAR community and the international airborne science community as a whole. The book was carefully reviewed by EUFAR internal and 22 external international reviewers. Beside the printed book version, an online supplementary appendix was published which can be downloaded from the publisher’s website. This is particularly important for possible additions to the handbook which can be implemented and uploaded any time within the next EUFAR project phase

N5ET – Education and Training aims at fostering the development of a broad community of new users. The objectives of N5ET are: (i) to attract new early-stage researchers to airborne research; (ii) to educate and train (theoretically and practically) new early-stage researchers in airborne atmospheric research and airborne hyperspectral remote sensing; (iii) to train trainers (e.g. university lecturers) in airborne atmospheric research and airborne hyperspectral remote sensing. EUFAR offers four training opportunities: (i) training courses on airborne research (ET-TC); (ii) opportunity to join an existing campaign (ET-EC); (iii) participation in the design of a new field campaign, in the frame of Transnational Access (TA) with tutoring by experienced scientists (ET-TA); (iv) visit to aircraft/instrument operator for exchange of knowledge and know-how (ET-VO).

N6SP – Standards and Protocols aims for the harmonisation of the various processes and documentation concerning the acquired data within EUFAR. The overall suite of EUFAR’s airborne data is addressed, ranging from atmospheric research to hyperspectral remote sensing. Harmonisation is achieved by developing common semantics and terminologies through the review process of given standards and protocols, and through the compilation of a basic glossary. A special focus is given to real-time data exchange and data links. Operators and users are supported with recommendations on best practices for data processing. Another objective of N6SP is the production of software-toolboxes for data analysis and higher level data products, which are published on the EUFAR webpage. Overall, N6SP assures consistency of the data to improve the efficiency of their use and to assist new and inexperienced users within EUFAR through the development of guiding principles.

N7DB – Data Base aims at ensuring that all the data collected during the project are widely available through a central portal to facilitate data exchange, collaboration and re-use. This activity comprised 4 parts: to set up an archive, to support data providers to prepare files, and to populate and maintain the archive. Previously the majority of valuable airborne measurements were not exchanged beyond the initial commissioning team and were not discoverable, let alone accessible, to the wider community- only 2 out of the 19 aircraft routinely archived their data in accessible online archives. A dedicated EUFAR archive and supporting webpages were set up at the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC), part of the Centre for Environmental Data Archival (CEDA), to store the otherwise offline data, and links were provided to the two existing archives so all data would be accessible through a single gateway. Metadata records were produced to enable the discovery of EUFAR datasets through the NERC/CEDA catalogue and beyond. To ensure the ease of access, development of common tools, data re-use and preservation, the importance of standard data formats was widely agreed by the EUFAR community, but not uniformly deployed. Formatting and metadata support and advice was given to data providers to prepare their files for archiving in community-agreed standard data formats. Once prepared, data files were ingested into the archives throughout the project, and arranged by project and also by aircraft. Software tools to manage the data, including one to produce a useful table of the data present in the archive, were developed. Data totalling 9.2TB from 154 flights/flightlines made by 12 aircraft for all 43 projects have been archived and are now widely accessible online via http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/eufar/.

N8EC – E-Communication aims at upgrading and maintaining the website, adapting the workflow for Transnational Access proposal evaluation, automatically updating the aircraft planning of occupation, and implementing tool boxes for the shared library of standard processing analysis.

N9SST – Sustainable Structure aims at developing a framework for a sustainable EUFAR legal structure, by evaluating possible models of a legal structure for a joint management of the network, promoting the extension of TA beyond community support, compiling information on the activities of the fleet and their scientific impact to support strategic decisions and enhancing coordination with the international community of research aircraft operators and with the COPAL Preparatory Phase study (2008-2011) for the construction of a heavy-payload, long endurance turboprop aircraft in Europe (which was an initiative of the EUFAR I3 in FP6).
No consensus has been reached within the EUFAR Consortium about the creation of a sustainable legal structure, although the rationale was debated and various legal models were evaluated as part of the COPAL activities, including the ERIC, the association model and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). As no financial commitment has been secured by the COPAL partners for procurement and modification of a European heavy payload and long endurance research aircraft, the decision was made, as planned, to develop a specific legal structure in EUFAR for its long term sustainability. Implementation of Open Access (all researchers get access on equal terms to a large fleet of instrumented aircraft irrespective of their institutional affiliation and of which country operates the aircraft) to the infrastructure was initiated: a new scheme, relying on either exchange of access for countries that are operating large scale infrastructures or exchange of personnel for those with no infrastructure to trade was developed, and this effort culminated in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Signatories of the MoU committed to one or to both objectives: (i) to pursue the objectives of the COPAL Preparatory Phase; (ii) to implement Open Access.
The databases of scientific publications related to airborne research and of the activities of the aircraft fleet were regularly updated, two EUFAR/COPAL joint meetings were organised and an international coordination working group was constituted (http://www.commission1.isprs.org/wg1/). Its objectives are to promote the standardisation of instrument interfaces, data formats and aircraft accommodations, and to facilitate more efficient, flexible and cost-effective international science flight operations.

JRA1 - DENCHAR addresses the deficit of a compact, reliable and fast measuring airborne hygrometer. Water vapour is one of the most important parameters in weather forecasting and climate research. Accurate and reliable airborne measurements of water vapour are a pre-requisite to study the underlying processes in the chemistry and physics of the atmosphere. Presently, no airborne humidity sensor exists that covers the entire range of water vapour content of more than four orders of magnitude between the surface and the UT/LS region, with sufficient accuracy and time resolution, not to speak of the technical requirements for quasi-routine operation. JRA1 focuses on the Development and Evaluation of Novel and Compact Hygrometer for Airborne Research (DENCHAR), including the sampling characteristics of different gas/ice inlets. The new instruments use innovative detecting technics based on tuneable diode laser technology combined with absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS), photo-acoustic spectroscopy (PAS), or surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology. The activity has followed a unique strategy by facilitating new instrumental developments together with conducting extensive testing, both in the laboratory and during in-flight operation. In parallel, a new airborne ultra-fast thermometer (UFT2) designed for very fast temperature measurements at KHz-range has been developed and tested in the laboratory (wind tunnel measurements) and in-flight.

JRA2 - HYQUAPRO aims at the development of quality layers for airborne hyperspectral imagery and data products thus improving user-confidence and the wider utility of hyperspectral datasets. The HYQUAPRO objectives are: (i) to develop quality indicators and quality layers for airborne hyperspectral imagery; (ii) to develop quality indicators and quality layers for higher level data products; (iii) to implement and to test quality layers in existing processing chains of airborne hyperspectral imagery (iv) to develop higher performing water and soil algorithms as demonstrators for end-to-end processing chains with harmonised quality measures.

JRA3 - ALIDS tackles a challenge in cloud physics by extending to airborne operations a very innovative technique that has recently been developed in the laboratory for drop sizing. No instrument exists today for the accurate measurement of the drop size distribution in the diameter range from 20 to 200 µm; a range that is essential for studies of the onset of precipitation. All measurement principles already applied to airborne operation suffer from a poor sampling area, hence poor statistical significance in this range. The new principle, referred to as Interferometric Laser Imaging Droplet Sizer (ILIDS), offers in contrast, a much larger (by a factor of 1000) sampling area and provides absolute measurements of the drop size, using interference fringe detection, the frequency of which is linked to the droplet size with a linear and robust relation. Unlike the PDA technique, ILIDS technique is less sensitive to hostile environments (vibrations, optics contamination). The objective of the JRA3 is therefore to develop an integrated airborne probe which can be implemented on a standard PMS attachment.

MGT - Management of the Consortium aims at (i) supporting the beneficiaries in the overall legal, ethical, financial and administrative management; (ii) organising the steering committee and the general assembly meetings; (iii) reporting to the EC on the technical progress of the activities and on the financial aspects of the project at the end of each reporting period and at the end of the project, and addressing any issue raised by the EC.
Project Results:
N1SAC – Scientific Advisory Committee
The N1SAC activity provided an independent overview of EUFAR progress and achievements, and allowed experienced and eminent researchers to express their long-term strategic forward look on the development of European airborne research infrastructures.
A special session of the kick-off meeting (Exeter, September 2008) was dedicated to a meeting with the Scientific Advisory Committee, during which the EUFAR coordinator summarised the EUFAR objectives and work plan. The EUFAR coordinator delivered to the SAC a summary of the EUFAR activities, accomplishments and difficulties encountered in the implementation of the activities on an annual basis (October 2010 prior to the ICARE-2010 conference in Toulouse, and September 2011 prior to the General Assembly meeting in Florence) until the third year of the contract, and not beyond this date due to the necessity of saving funds to continue the EUFAR activity at a minimum level during the 12 month extension with no additional budget (amendment no.2).
After the presentation of the EUFAR activities at the kick-off meeting, the SAC held a separate session, where internal issues were discussed. The SAC presented its responsibilities, terms of reference and first recommendations to the GA. Following the report on the EUFAR activities by the EUFAR coordinator, the SAC made recommendations to the GA until the third year of the contract. During the last participation of the SAC in an open discussion with the EUFAR beneficiaries (General Assembly meeting in Florence, September 2011) the discussion centred around three central themes: Open Access, Future of the Fleet and Innovation. Both the questions of the Future of the Fleet and Open Access were seen as central to a broader discussion on how to move EUFAR to a sustainable infrastructure. Therefore, most of the discussion of the SAC was devoted to the question of how to work towards a sustainable structure for EUFAR, what shape this should take, and how such an initiative could be nurtured. In addition, the question of how EUFAR should address the EU mandate for innovation and on-going contributions to the organisation of data, standards and protocols for data was discussed.

N2TAC – Transnational Access Coordination
Soon after the start of the project, it was decided to adopt a continuously-open Call for Proposals, with a number of aims in view. The first aim was to enable submitted projects to move through the review and approval process as quickly as possible so that the project could then also be quickly and smoothly integrated into the plans of the selected aircraft operator. The second was to lighten the load on the TA coordinator and EUFAR scientific assistant in organising independent TA reviewers. Projects were generally passed singly (or no more than 2-3 at a time) to the User Group Selection Panel (UGSP). Whilst this was generally efficient, it meant that the UGSP played a small role in selecting priorities amongst competing projects. The exception to this was towards the end of RP2, when a majority of the available funding had already been allocated and a meeting (by web-conference) of the UGSP was required in order to prioritise allocation of the remaining funds.
No pre-allocation of funding was made to individual aircraft operators. Rather a nominal distribution was made in order to establish an overall target for the number of flight hours, user groups and individual scientific users that would be supported. This assumed a normal allocation of about 10 flight hours per proposal.
In the outcome, fewer projects were supported (42) than planned (64) but significantly more scientific users (368, compared to 168 planned). The reduced number of projects was due to the need to support several projects with additional hours above the initially-expected value of 10 hours in order to make their proposed flight activity feasible. However, the number of users was enhanced due to the support of an additional fifth summer school in association with the Education and Training activity, and the high number of hyperspectral imaging projects which typically had larger user groups. Of 505 supported flight hours (compared to the 520 planned), 268 were used on hyperspectral activities and 237 on in-situ atmospheric sampling. Whilst 78% of the TA funding was spent at flight facilities in the UK, France and Germany, approximately 74% of the scientific users came from outside these countries, fulfilling the key objective of TA.
In view of the relatively small number of flight hours that could be awarded to each approved project, it was attempted as far as possible to cluster TA flying with other flight activities. The latter could include both other TA flight projects supported by EUFAR or campaigns that were supported by national funding. The benefits of clustering were expected to be two-fold: i) It should lead to larger science user groups coming together in the field with beneficial interactions between them. ii) It should allow individual user groups a longer period in the field and thus a greater opportunity of finding an optimum set of meteorological conditions in which to obtain their required measurements. The latter is important both for hyperspectral imaging applications that commonly require cloud-free skies over the target area and for in-situ sampling which is commonly focussed on some particular atmospheric phenomenon of interest. iii) It should minimise the need to accommodate transit flights to the region of interest within the EUFAR flight time allocation. Successful examples of both types of clustering were organised with feedback from PIs generally suggesting that the expected aims of clustering were achieved. Two such examples include the LADUNEX and RAIN4DUST projects that were clustered with the multinational flight campaign FENNEC (UK/France) under the EUFAR transnational access framework in 2013 (cf. Figures 2 & 3).
The EUFAR TA aircraft fleet incorporated a number of small, low-cost aircraft. Although one such aircraft exceeded is planned target of flight hours, overall activity in this segment of the fleet was below that of planned – 62 flight hours compared to 109 planned. Special promotion of this part of the TA fleet was undertaken on the EUFAR website but this did not lead to a large increase in applications for these aircraft. Further promotion will, nevertheless, be undertaken in the future as these aircraft are capable of making sophisticated and high-quality measurements.

N3FF – Future of the Fleet
The N3FF activity evaluated the performance of the existing fleet and identified gaps, and provided solutions for the long-term development of the European fleet.
User needs and existing solutions between users and aircraft operators have been identified in terms of stratospheric aircraft for the European fleet. The Whitebook ‘Stratospheric Aircraft in Europe’, a compilation of surveys from an on line questionnaire to express user needs, was published on the EUFAR website at the end of the third year of the project. The main up-to-date solutions are given as follows (cf. Figure 4):
(i) M55 Geophysica: Progress has been achieved by the Stratosphere-M/Myasishchev Design Bureau (STM/MDB) and the aircraft operators. The aircraft carried out one major and one smaller campaign in 2010 and 2011, and was in need of major overhaul thereafter. As a result of negotiations between MDB and the Russian Ministry of Defence, i.e. the Russian Air Force, the transfer of property of the two engines (with 500 flight hours each) from a spare aircraft of the same type and owned by the military, was accomplished. With these engines and some component upgrades completed in 2012 (navigational unit and ACAS system) with funds from Jülich and KIT (Germany) in the frame of the ESSenCe11 campaign (Kiruna, Nov./Dec. 2011), the aircraft is available for major research activities in the coming years. However, with new campaigns, further overhaul of the aircraft will need to be completed. In order to cover these expenses the appropriate rates for the use of M55 Geophysica were increased to 11781€/dry-leasing-day and 12300€/flight hour for upcoming campaigns. Jülich is working with MDB in order to overcome bureaucratic obstacles and facilitate a possible inclusion of STM/MDB in European projects as full partners. The decision to include M55 Geophysica in the EUFAR fleet for TA had been previously postponed to a new EUFAR project.

(ii) ER-2/WB57: The general terms of use were defined in a letter by NASA HQ earlier, but neither more specific planning of concrete projects nor contract negotiations have been started so far. A major obstacle for the use of these aircraft by European research groups is the high cost involved with the integration (modification) and certification of a bigger number of existing instruments. However, the FISH instrument of Jülich has been integrated and successfully flown on-board the WB57 for the water vapour inter-comparison campaign MACPEX in 2011.

(iii) Global Hawk: The first scientific NASA missions were successfully completed; U.K. agreed with NASA on future cooperation, but currently Global Hawk is not yet available for non-US projects. However, a DOAS instrument of the University of Heidelberg (Germany) group of Klaus Pfeilsticker has been integrated and has taken part in the latest campaigns, including shared operations with CIRES, Boulder, CO.
The evaluation of the performance of the fleet indicated that the most obvious gap in the EUFAR fleet is still a stratospheric aircraft with a ceiling higher than 15 km. However, in Europe the Geophysica continued its operation with the Reconcile mission 2010 and the coming ESA mission at the end of 2011. The delay in the German HALO programme (ceiling of 15 km envisaged) limits the current EUFAR fleet to 12-13 km. The eruptions of the volcanoes in Iceland in 2010 and 2011 demonstrated that coordination of a European research aircraft fleet is highly desirable. EUFAR acted as an ‘information centre’ during these periods, however the operations were planned and conducted by the national operators. A contingency fund within EUFAR for such unforeseen events could be helpful in making the coordinating abilities more effective.
Further developments for the future of the fleet can be envisaged through three main ideas: (i) the upcoming options of UAV provide innovative airborne research in the future in areas which have not been easily accessible so far. Examples are the Global Hawk with stratospheric ceiling and a very long range; (iii) the stratospheric aircraft needs and options are evaluated, however the availability of these carriers needs to be also traced in the coming years. Funding for operations and hardware is currently needed, rather than publications of new papers; (iii) and progress towards the future provision of a COPAL long-range, heavy-payload aircraft is still on the agenda.

N4EWG – Expert Working Groups
After the EWG kick-off meeting held in February 2009 to discuss roles of EWG leaders and objectives, 10 Expert Working Group (EWG) workshops and 3 meetings dedicated to the EUFAR textbook were organised and held over the duration of the project (cf. Table 4). Respective reports have been published on the EUFAR website.
The EUFAR book on “Airborne Measurements for Environmental Research – Methods and Instruments” (cf. Figure 5) summarises the knowledge of international experts in airborne measurements from 13 countries which they have developed over many years of field experiments and application to environmental research. One of the EUFAR Networking Activities is dedicated to Expert Working Groups (EWGs) which facilitate cross-disciplinary fertilisations and a wider sharing of knowledge and technologies between academia and industry in the field of airborne research. Over the reporting period EWG workshops have been organised addressing technical, logistic, and scientific issues specific to airborne research for the environment. From the beginning, these workshops involved international experts; however, an ever-increasing number of scientists from outside the European airborne science community have become involved and play an active role. Thus, the EWGs within EUFAR have become a truly international collaborative effort and, as a consequence, the workshops had a continuously increasing impact on defining research foci of future international airborne research.
The EUFAR EWGs have published workshop reports and recommendations (i) to aircraft operators on best practice and common protocols for operation of airborne instruments, (ii) to scientific users on best usage and interpretation of the collected data, and (iii) to the research institutions on future challenges in airborne measurements. To ensure legacy of this accumulated knowledge, the EUFAR book summarises the major outcomes of the EWGs discussions on the current status of airborne instrumentation. The book has been designed to provide an extensive overview of existing and emerging airborne measurement principles and techniques. Furthermore, the book analyses problems, limitations and mitigation approaches specific to airborne research in exploring the environment.
Chapter 1 (Introduction) examines strengths and weaknesses of airborne measurements. The subsequent Chapter 2 (Basic Thermodynamic and Dynamic Parameters) deals with the description of instruments to measure aircraft state parameters and basic thermodynamic and dynamic variables of the atmosphere, such as static air pressure, temperature, water vapour, wind vector, turbulence, and fluxes. The next three chapters consider in situ measurements of gaseous and particulate atmospheric constituents (Chapter 3-5). Chemical instruments to measure gaseous atmospheric components are introduced in Chapter 3 (Gas Phase Measurements); whereas, the instrumentation for particulate atmospheric constituents is described in Chapters 4 (Aerosol Measurement Systems) and 5 (In Situ Characterisation of Clouds and Precipitation Particles). Special problems associated with airborne particle sampling (aerosol and cloud/precipitation particles) are discussed in Chapter 6 (Particle Sampling Issues). The next two chapters deal with airborne radiation measurements (Chapter 7), and with techniques for passive remote sensing of the Earth's surface (Chapter 8). The most commonly applied airborne active remote sensing techniques are introduced in Chapter 9 (Active Remote Sensing). An extensive, albeit not complete, list of references the reader may consult for airborne instrumentation is given at the end of the book. Furthermore, some supplementary material has been compiled which is not printed but available from the publisher's website.

N5ET – Education and Training
Over the period 2010-2012, five training courses were organised:
(i) The first training course “ADvanced Digital Remote sensing in Ecology and earth Sciences Summer School” (ADDRESSS) was held at the Balaton Limnological Research Institute (BLRI) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from August 19th-28th 2010 in Tihany (Hungary). PI: András Zlinszky, Balaton Limnological Research Institute (BLRI), Hungary (cf. Figure 6);

(ii) The second training course “Training & Education for Turbulence Research via Airborne Data” (TETRAD), organised by the CNR ISAC Institute for Atmospheric Sciences and Climate held between the 10th-18th September 2010 in Hyères (France). PI: Alessandra Lanotte, CNR ISAC Institute for Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Italy (cf. Figure 7);

(iii) The third training course “Quality of Airborne Data” (QAD) held at Météo-France from 26 October to 5 November 2010 during ICARE 2010 in Toulouse (France) with various aircraft of the EUFAR fleet. PI: Radovan Krejci, Stockholm University, Sweden (cf. Figure 8);

(iv) The fourth training course “School ON Aircraft Techniques for the studies of Atmospheric chemistry” (SONATA) held from 17th -28th August 2011 in Pescara (Italy). PI: Host: Piero Di Carlo, CETEMPS, University L’Aquila, Italy (cf. Figure 9).

(v) The fifth training course “Regional Experiments For Land-atmosphere Exchanges” (REFLEX) organised by the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente (UT-ITC) was held from July 18th-28th 2012 in Albacete-Barrax (Spain). The REFLEX training course was a collaboration between FP7 EUFAR, COST ACTION ES0903 EUROSPEC and ESA. PI: Bob Su and Wim Timmermans, University of Twente, Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation, The Netherlands (cf. Figure 10).
During the 5 EUFAR training courses 100 participants (including a minimum 12 university lecturers) out of 287 received applications were trained. The participants originated from 18 different EU member states or associated states. Only 28% of the participants originated from the countries Germany, France and UK operating the major airborne facilities. Beside the 100 participants trained in the ET-TC training courses, 15 ET-EC proposals to join an existing campaign and one ET-VO proposal to visit an aircraft/instrument operator were supported.

N6SP – Standards and Protocols
The variety of aircraft and instruments for airborne measurements and the huge number of institutions involved in EUFAR introduces a heterogeneous pool of data and different ways of handling the processes involved. Therefore, there was a need to introduce standards within EUFAR to improve integration and interoperability within the network, both for aircraft operators and for the end-users themselves. N6SP was tasked with creating a system of recommendations for best practices and standards for data processing, formats and transfer within EUFAR.
In order to prevent ambiguous definitions, a glossary on airborne measurements was produced in the framework of N6SP. It is the baseline for EUFAR-related reports and publications, and will continue to be updated by EUFAR members as a living document.
A review of existing pre-processing software for the different kinds of data acquired within EUFAR has been completed, with comparisons and testing performed where applicable. As a result, a report on software performance, availability and adaptability as well as technical documentation on best practice for data pre-processing are available to assist new and inexperienced users.
During the development of the EUFAR common protocols, existing standards from the European and International community were examined for their suitability, and extended, where possible, to ensure conformity between the EUFAR-specific standards and the broader community standards. The following elements were covered: (i) flight campaign planning; (ii) data processing and quality measures; (iii) data distribution and catalogue; (iv) real-time data transfer; (v) mission metadata recording.
The common protocol for flight campaign planning eases the coordination and management of the high number of available aircraft and instruments within EUFAR. It also includes information to easily track the project status and in case of data acquisition, to provide input parameters for the metadata set, which is used for data cataloguing, storage and further processing.

Procedures for data processing tend to be instrument/system dependent, therefore a common data-processing framework has been proposed. It was implemented through the creation of a common data-processing toolbox and the definition of common metadata. The toolbox is called EGADS (EUFAR General Data Processing Software, see http://code.google.com/p/eufar-egads/) and includes mature and well-established algorithms considered as best practice for processing and manipulating raw and higher-level probe and image data. The design of the EGADS framework allows users to link algorithms as needed, and was developed using Python. Currently there are 70 algorithms implemented, ranging from thermodynamics, biophysics etc. to quality control. To assure functionality, a detailed testing and validation on the different implemented algorithms in EGADS has been performed.
The metadata component of the common-data processing framework ensures accurate quality indicators; aids in data storage, retrieval and processing and helps users understand datasets. Within EUFAR it was agreed to follow INSPIRE as a general metadata format. In addition, the common protocols for data processing and quality measures have been merged in a common set of metadata for hyperspectral image data. For atmospheric data the NetCDF metadata format is used for describing the dataset and each variable contained within. The metadata parameters chosen for use in the NetCDF files extend the CF-conventions metadata standard. These conventions are used throughout the atmospheric and geo-sciences, bringing EUFAR into compliance with the broader scientific community.
To aid the adoption of the INSPRIRE metadata standard, an online INSPIRE metadata creator was developed for the N6SP wiki. This creator allows users to fill out a web-form containing INSPIRE metadata fields and then generate a downloadable INSPIRE XML file when all the data has been entered and the required fields are completed. A further standard was developed for reporting post-flight scientific metadata to help harmonise the information and level of detail contained in these reports. This standard is called Airborne Science Mission Metadata (ASMM) and it defines an XML format with pre-defined categories containing information on various flight parameters and meteorological conditions encountered during a research flight. A software tool was used to allow users to quickly enter information on post-flight scientific metadata using a graphical user interface (GUI). This software will generate and read these ASMM XML files.
The standards for data distribution and cataloguing were set by EUFAR’s Database Activity N7DB. The proposed formats are NetCDF for atmospheric data and HDF for hyperspectral image data. N6SP proposed a common structure for the two formats including all relevant metadata.
A special focus was given to the recommendations and protocols for real-time data transfer from aircraft to ground stations and real-time data transfer within an aircraft. After an extensive review of existing standards, EUFAR recommended the adoption of the protocols developed by the US-based Interagency Working Group for Airborne Data and Telemetry Systems (IWGADTS).

N7DB – Data Base
The aim of the EUFAR database activity was to ensure that all the data collected during the project are widely available through a central portal. The first task of the N7DB activity was to identify and contact the data managers for all 19 potential TA aircraft and survey their data management processes. The compilation of a scoping study showed that each of these 19 aircraft had one or more data collection/processing streams (depending on instrumentation); with each stream independently producing a data product in a format required by its user. The data volumes and format produced varied greatly between aircraft due to instrumentation and processing level. Some operators retained a copy in offline storage after it had been passed to the project team, however, some data was simply taken away by instrument teams after a flight to be used by the project but not stored in any consistent manner – for this data it would be the end of the line. Just two of the aircraft already routinely archived their data in online archives - and these were located at BADC and NEODC – part of CEDA.
A dedicated EUFAR archive was set up to store the remaining, currently offline EUFAR data. The existing archives were co-locationed at CEDA which enabled internal links to be provided so that all EUFAR data was available through the single gateway and under the same access conditions. Metadata catalogue records and supporting software webpages were also set up to enable discovery and tracking of the data. The conditions of access to the data were established and agreed by the consortium – data was to be publicly available immediately but users are required to register (for tracking purposes) and to acknowledge the data originator appropriately. The data archive is accessible via http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/eufar/.
Throughout the project good working relationships with the data providers from this new community were built. Support was given to data processing and project teams to help achieve the agreed standard data formats and to prepare and upload data files. It was found to be expedient for aircraft and instrument data processing teams to prepare and upload data directly, and not the project teams, as they had more experience of handling large data transfers and the required formats. Some operators were already familiar and experienced with the standard formats required. To maximise re-use and preservability, data was stored in NetCDF (in situ data) and ENVI-BIL a binary format widely used by the remote sensing community. Both formats are readable with open-source tools. With support, most operators were able to achieve these formats.
The first use of the EUFAR archive was for a data sharing activity following the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull on 14th April 2010. In conjunction with the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) the EUFAR community agreed to share details of early research flights and measurements in and around the volcanic ash cloud that closed northern European airspace to commercial aircraft for several days. In a very short timeframe a directory was set up and support given to 4 data providers to upload flight logs and data, and to log events on a specially produced geo-temporal tracking tool.
The archive was populated throughout the project. Due to the different processing requirements for each instrument/aircraft, data became available to archive on a range of timescales after a flight. Some data arrived within days, others many months later after reminders had been sent. Thus, ingestion occurred in irregular bursts right up to and beyond the end of the project even though flights themselves were completed earlier (cf. Table 5).

In total 9.3 TB of data have been archived from 154 flights/flightlines for 43 projects by 12 aircraft (i.e. 12+ different data routes). Data from 10 aircraft are stored in the EUFAR archive, and data from the FAAM BAe-146 and NERC ARSF are stored in their respective archive but linked internally to be visible through the EUFAR archive. It was agreed that the data from one project DRAMAC (large volumes of specialised video data) should be retained by the project but details of how to get access were included. The fact that 43 projects supplied appropriate data/metadata to the datacentre illustrates a great success.
Data was transferred to the datacentre using a range of technologies including FTP (push and pull), CEDA web-based uploader, multiple DVDs, external hard disks by post and email. Files were then transferred to the data-arrival area before being checked, ingested into the archive and metadata records updated.
Within the archive, data are arranged in directories ordered by flight, but for ease of access are also listed by aircraft. An automatically-updated table was produced to show all the projects and data present with links to the data files - this can be viewed online at:
http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/browse/badc/eufar/docs/00eufararchivecontents.html.

Throughout the project the archive has been maintained and updated. Regular backups and integrity checks have been performed in line with data centre practice. During the project the whole dataset was transparently migrated to the new JASMIN super-data-cluster at CEDA (http://www.ceda.ac.uk/projects/jasmin/). Dataset web pages and metadata catalogue records on aircraft and projects have been regularly reviewed and updated. Software to ingest the data and produce the table of archive contents was updated and improved with the arrival of new data.
In addition to regular discussions with the EUFAR Data Standards and Protocols (N6SP) team, the archive manager has participated in workshops on metadata standards with the Interagency Working Group for Airborne Data and Telemetry Systems (IWGADTS) and GMES atmospheres (MACC) air quality and composition groups. Sharing of best practices and experience has also been improved by working closely with data-centre colleagues working for the NCAS,National centre for Earth Observation (NCEO),ESA communities, INSPIRE SMEs and the NetCDF Climate and Forecast (CF) Metadata Convention standard names manager. We have also collaborated with the ESA Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) project which has used examples of EUFAR data as case studies.
The EUFAR data archive has been well used (cf. Table 6). With the exception of the FAAM BAe-146 data, which was uploaded straight into the archive for distribution, these download figures are complete in addition to data usage by the commissioning project teams who will have received files directly from the data providers prior to it being archived in the BADC/CEDA archive. Thus, the EUFAR data archive has by far exceeded the originally estimated 20 datasets (43) and 100 files downloaded per year (4842).

N8EC – E-Communication
The website was updated (i) to include the FP7 description and objectives, and integrate the hyperspectral community (HYRESSA); (ii) to improve and harmonise the website, including security issues; (iii) to improve the operator, aircraft and instrument description pages and database; (iv) to include N5ET application forms, and facilitate submission process review and user reporting; (v) to improve the management of members; (vi) to facilitate communication (easy access to and update of the newsletters, EUFAR achievements’ page). In 2012, the EUFAR website was switched from CVS (Concurrent Versions System) to Subversion (SVN).
At the end of the project, 1770 active members were registered in the database, essentially as researchers, versus 1000 at the beginning of the project (cf. Table 7 and Figure 11).
The website is now much more stable than at the beginning of the contract, and the planned installation of a web content manager system (CMS) and the transfer of both the EUFAR and HYRESSA contents in the new system as recommended during FP6 can now be envisaged. The EUFAR website has many specific features which are not implemented by default in existing CMS and would require specific developments, similarly to what is done today so the choice and transfer will require a long period of time. The priority was to make the website more stable and easily maintained during a transition phase before the development of a new website at the University of Warsaw (Poland) in the framework of the next EUFAR contract (2014-2018).
Following the specifications established at the end of FP6, the webmasters developed and implemented the new workflow for Transnational Access proposal evaluation on the EUFAR website. It has thereafter been improved following users' feedback. The full implementation of the new Transnational Access workflow was made later than planned in the Annex I but this had no impact (no delay, no restriction) as the Transnational Access proposals could be submitted and evaluated as planned in the Annex I.
To address the issue of automatically updating the aircraft planning of occupation, the survey carried out during FP6 was circulated again to compile updated information about current operators' system and needs. The 4 responses received led to the same conclusions as FP6's, namely operator systems are all very different. After discussion, the best solution seemed to be to provide operators with a web tool taking advantage of new technologies for maintaining their own private aircraft planning with an easy way to integrate details from this planning to the public, and display a fleet-wide planning system accessible on the EUFAR website and maybe on the operators' websites if they wanted to. The aim was to interface this system with the EUFAR database and, in a second phase, to create interfaces between independent planning systems in use by operators who wish to maintain both their own planning system and the EUFAR planning system.

A web developer was hired for 6 months to work on this task following the work plan elaborated under RP2, focusing on the development of the system. He contacted the operators twice to obtain their remarks as they would be the first users of this new tool and we did not want to have a lack of updates as was the case with the previous tool. The developer designed a new planning system based on XML files. Each XML file represented an aircraft project by containing all the data associated to it. It is then simple to add, remove, edit a project by simply adding, removing or editing the XML file associated with the project. Once the structure (or definition) of these XML files was created, the design of the files gradually evolved during the development of the tool. The only restriction being that the XML filename must be unique.
Another XML file allows the management of the fleet of the aircraft displayed on the planning. Then, by simply adding or removing an aircraft in this XML file, we could add or remove an aircraft displayed on the planning. This allows the operator who wants to use this planning system internally to display on his/her planning only his/her own aircraft easily. The tool to display the planning is a web interface coded in PHP, XHTML and JavaScript currently hosted on the EUFAR server. It browses the XML files, and organises and displays their contents. As it is minimal, it can be easily “installed” by the operators if they want to use it internally - they just need a web server (Apache for example), a PHP interpreter and a browser. Different views are proposed (by year, by month), and users can refine the display by selecting only some aircraft, or a particular category of aircraft (cf. Figures 12 and 13). A few details of a project can be viewed on mouse over. The full planning of an aircraft is displayed when the user clicks on the aircraft line, and the full description of a project is available when clicking on a project block. The new planning of the fleet, designed to be compatible with a web content manager system (CMS), has been operational since the end of the EUFAR contract.
Following the specifications previously defined by the N6SP working group, the facilities required to distribute the software toolbox has been implemented on the EUFAR website. The EGADS project is now hosted on Google Code's Project Hosting service which provides a free collaborative development environment for open source projects. The software toolbox has then been advertised on the EUFAR Website especially on the homepage. In addition, a wiki dedicated to the N6 Standards and Protocol activity has been created. It allows the EUFAR users to learn about the recommendations and products provided by the N6SP team and it is easily maintained and updated by the N6SP leaders.
Regarding collaboration in workshops on web services, a representative of the EUFAR office presented the EUFAR needs at a one-day workshop on common ICT and e-infrastructure needs for the ESFRI Research Infrastructures in the field of Environmental Sciences in March 2010 in Brussels (Belgium), organised by the EC. The working group on web services, which the EUFAR webmaster is part of and involves representatives of ESFRI projects, held its first meeting in September 2010 in Toulouse, France. The goals of this working group are to exchange, and share experiences in and knowledge on many fields related to web services as well as software or applications.
A coordination effort was conducted during the Eyjafjöll eruption in April 2010: EUFAR organised 7 teleconferences with operators studying the volcanic ash cloud. These meeting were intended to coordinate the operators’ efforts, provide reports of all ash flights and discuss data processing issues. Two mailing lists were created to circulate information and discuss data processing issues. A website was also created to provide a repository of information for operators and scientists, and to coordinate efforts to more thoroughly measure and understand the properties of the ash plume. It allowed to share information about the ash flights and measurements, and distribute flight reports, flight tracks created by the N6SP engineer (based on the data given by the operators), instrument processing methods, links to the repository for ash data (available at the BADC (N7DB)) and useful links. It was password protected for confidentiality and security reasons, and the access was given only to the ash mailing lists users. As this website was based on a wiki system, the users were able to edit the pages themselves and contribute accordingly.

N9SST – Sustainable Structure
The N9SST activity aimed at promoting solutions for the long-term sustainability of EUFAR, providing the research funding institutions with information necessary to improve the structure of and integrate European airborne research infrastructures, and managing coordination with international organisations.
The evaluation of the possible legal structure models to use for a EUFAR sustainable structure relies on the activities conducted in the COPAL project. The objective in COPAL is to jointly operate a community research aircraft. EUFAR, in contrast, is not planning to own a common asset, but rather to provide researchers with equal term access to existing airborne research infrastructures regardless of which country owns and operates the aircraft. To reach this objective, EUFAR thus supports coordination between research aircraft operators and promotes an Equal Terms Transnational Access, also referred to as Open Access, for the researchers.
COPAL identified two main types of legal structure models, the association model (e.g. AISBL) and the ERIC. The EUFAR and COPAL requirements were discussed at the International Conference on Airborne Research (ICARE-2010) in Toulouse (France) in October 2010 and during three joint EUFAR/COPAL meetings. The consensus among operators in COPAL is that the ERIC is well suited for the joint ownership of a common asset (the heavy-payload and long endurance aircraft), but not essential for the coordination of aircraft operators of a distributed fleet and the implementation of Open Access.
In September 2011, the majority of the COPAL members (9 out of 13 partners) signed a MoU. This MoU acts as an interim structure (with no legally binding commitments) which has 2 main objectives (the MoU signatories committed to one or to both projects): (i) to pursue the objectives of the COPAL Preparatory Phase (aircraft project); (ii) to implement Open Access. The signature of the MoU is a first step towards the constitution of a more sustainable structure for both EUFAR and COPAL. Up to now, these two projects were supported from the bottom-up, and it is clear that further steps now require stronger involvement of the parent institutions. Most of the effort now is thus devoted to lobbying at the national level for research institutions to actively contribute to the future of the network of airborne research operators and users. The members of the Consortium were invited to mobilise their parent institutions in supporting the main goals of EUFAR, namely Open Access to the existing facilities, detachment of personnel to facilitate the transfer of expertise, and ultimately the construction of a community aircraft in Europe. The signature of the MoU is a first step towards the constitution of a more sustainable structure for both EUFAR and COPAL. Further steps now require a stronger involvement of the parent institutions. Most of the effort now is devoted to lobbying at the national level for research institutions to actively contribute to the future of the network of airborne research operators and users. The members of the network are invited to mobilise their parent institutions for supporting the main achievements of EUFAR, namely Open Access to the existing facilities, detachment of personnel to facilitate the transfer of expertise, and ultimately the construction of a community aircraft in Europe.The activities of the fleet have been regularly monitored and updated; the average number of total flight hours (scientific plus transit flight hours) for each aircraft over the period 2008-2013 per field of science and per type of science is given in Figure 14 and Figure 15 respectively. Aircraft are grouped by category so that similarities in the fields/types of science surveyed may appear more evident. In most cases, aircraft in the same category investigate similar field/type of science. A database of peer reviewed publications created in EUFAR FP6 has been continuously updated during the project upon invitation of partners and authors to collaborate. Following a meeting with EUFAR’s US colleagues and the decision to merge the European and US databases, the list of scientific fields connected to each publication was revised. The previous database was also completed providing information such as the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) System, Scientific Reference (Sref), URL and name of authors’ institutions. The database now contains 2680 references of peer reviewed publications versus about 1600 references at the beginning of the contract (nearly 300 were added during RP1, 417 during RP2, 336 during RP3 and 29 during RP4). Each reference contains information about the scientific field and type, the geographical location of the experiment, the name of the airborne research campaign, the aircraft used and the updated citation rate. The most investigated field of science is above all the tropospheric field followed by the research associated to the boundary layer (see Figure 16). Concerning the type of science, atmospheric dynamics, cloud physics, aerosol chemistry and physics, gas chemistry and radiation categories are the most studied (see Figure 17).
N9SST also coordinated its activity with the international community of research aircraft operators. For the 10th anniversary of the European network of instrumented aircraft for research in environmental and geo-science and as part of the international coordination, an International Conference on Airborne Research for the Environment (ICARE-2010) was organised in Toulouse at the Météo-France Conference Centre during the last week of October 2010. All scientists involved in airborne research were invited to exchange knowledge and experience, and contribute to a forward-look on user requirements and operators’ development strategy. Amongst other things, the event featured a static presentation of European and US airborne facilities, and series of test flights for inter-calibration of their instrumentation. The EUFAR Coordinator was invited to the ICCAGRA (Interagency Coordinating Committee for Applications of Geosciences Research Aircraft) meeting in Washington (USA) in April 2010 to report on the EUFAR activities. With the US representatives, he participated in the review of each networking activity to harmonise their outcomes. During the ISPRS (International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing) meeting held in June 2010 in Calgary (Canada), the EUFAR Coordinator and the US representatives of the airborne research infrastructures promoted the use of instrumented aircraft for Earth surface observation and satellite instruments calibration/validation activities. In April 2011, the EUFAR coordinator participated in the 34th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE) in Sydney (Australia) and reported on the EUFAR activities. During the 33rd ISRSE symposium, an international coordination working group (Working Group I, http://www.commission1.isprs.org/wg1/) had been constituted, with the objective to promote the standardisation of instrument interfaces, data formats and aircraft accommodations and to facilitate more efficient, flexible and cost-effective international science flight operations. At the Working Group I meeting during the 34th ISRSE, important decisions were made to invite Chinese, Australian and Indian research aircraft organisations to join, to prepare a keynote speech for the Congress in 2012 and ICCAGRA and EUFAR jointly held a booth at the exhibition. The international collaboration between EUFAR and ICCAGRA, ISPRS and ISRSE has been successful since the beginning of the project and was pursued by WebEx to save remaining funds during the last two years of the project.

JRA1 - DENCHAR
In the course of JRA1, Development and Evaluation of Novel and Compact Hygrometer for Airborne Research (DENCHAR), new instruments have been developed and/or extensively tested in the laboratory as well as in-flight on-board of research aircraft: (i) SEALDH based on novel self-calibrating TDLAS hygrometer; (ii) WASUL, based on photoacoustic spectroscopy using tunable diode laser; (iii) commercial WVSS-II, also a TDLAS hygrometer, but using 2f-detection techniques (iv) SAW-frost point hygrometer using surface acoustic wave detection techniques. In parallel, a new airborne ultra-fast thermometer (UFT2) to conduct fast airborne temperature measurements at KHz-sampling rates has been developed and tested in the laboratory (wind duct measurements) or in-flight.
The activity has followed a unique strategy by facilitating new instrumental developments together with conducting extensive testing, both in the laboratory and during in-flight operation. As a result, in order to obtain unbiased results of the instrument intercomparisons, all laboratory and in-flight-performance tests during the project were conducted as blind intercomparisons and first analysed and evaluated after each PI submitted the data to the JRA1-coordinator. Furthermore, during in-flight testing on-board the Learjet research aircraft, the DENCHAR hygrometers were compared to the FISH instrument (cf. Figures 18 and 19). The FISH itself was calibrated to the reference frost point hygrometer MBW DP30 in the laboratory. The FISH instrument has participated in several international aircraft and laboratory hygrometer intercomparisons as one of the so-called 'core’ instruments'. In other terms: FISH can be assumed as the transfer standard between aircraft measurements and the ground based MBW DP30 reference frost-point hygrometer.
After successful testing, the new instruments were integrated in an autonomous small flight package (SFP) that could in principle be operated in any research aircraft in EUFAR. The SFP with the new DENCHAR instruments have been intensively tested and compared to the FISH and among each other (cf. Figure 20 and Tables 8 & 9). The results has been evaluated and compiled in an assessment report with following major outcome:

(i) All four DENCHAR-instruments show very consistent behaviour in their respective measuring ranges. They deviate by less than about 5-10%, in-flight against FISH as well as among each other. They also show similar consistent results in the laboratory against DP30 (MBW-Frost point hygrometer). Thus, all results can be traced to the DP30 reference instrument within about 10% or even better.

(ii) Performance of the new DENCHAR instruments is generally good from VMR = 20,000 ppmv down to 20-100 ppmv, achieving agreement within 10% uncertainty or better.

(iii) Instruments like SEALDH or WaSul, both using laser absorption spectroscopy detection methods, are able to achieve sampling rates of 10-100 Hz. This means they may be applied for fast measurements of gaseous water vapour > 10 ppmv, which open research areas on water vapour flux measurements or eddy correlation studies.

(iv) WaSuL has the potential to measure gaseous + total H2O simultaneously for VMR > 10 ppmv: one prototype will fly in the near future aboard one Canadian research aircraft, and further developments will be continued in the European IGAS-project. It has to be noted that an older version of WaSul is part of the suite of water vapour instruments aboard the CARIBIC-aircraft. In this framework, a method and arrangement for wavelength monitoring of wavelength tunable light source and stabilising based on absorption spectroscopic detecting has been developed by UZH and is the object of a Hungarian patent.

(v) The commercial WVSS-II system can be used for VMR > 200 ppmv in unattended mode and can carry out reliable water vapour measurements within ±(5-10)% uncertainty. However, at lower humidity the instrument is somewhat less reliable as its performance has been observed to alter: Sometimes the WVSS-II measures very well down to 20-40 ppmv, but at other times the same instrument reaches its detection limit already at 200 ppmv water vapour mixing ratios.

(vi) The measuring capabilities of the DENCHAR instruments SEALDH, WaSul and WVSS-II are remarkable good and are comparable with the results of intercomparisons of well-established airborne hygrometer measurements conducted in the laboratory at Aquavit or in-flight research aircraft campaign during for example MACPEX.
In parallel DENCHAR has also addressed the performance of different inlet systems. The following inlets were extensively compared to each other: (i) forward facing inlet; (ii) backward facing inlet; (iii) Rosemount (TAT housing) inlet; (iv) wall plate inlet: from all in-flight testings, no measurement artefacts caused by specific characteristics of an inlet could be identified. For the Rosemount inlets it was often discussed if evaporated ice residuals might influence the H2O signal. Up to now it was unknown if wall plate inlets properly sample the gas phase. From this study we can conclude that the latter two inlet types are also suitable for representative measurements of at least H2O. Our conclusions, however, are only valid in the temperature and pressure range studied here, that is T < 240 K (cirrus cloud range) and p < 500 hPa (altitudes > 5km). For warmer conditions at lower altitudes (mixed phase and warm cloud range) with much higher H2O concentrations, the possibility of condensation of water in the inlet lines or, inside of clouds, splashing of drops at the inlet tip is much larger. These effects can cause inlet induced measurement artefacts. It is a future task to study inlet characteristics under conditions typical for the lower troposphere.
The new ultra-fast airborne thermometer UFT2 was prototyped, designed, numerically evaluated, built and tested in a wind tunnel and in-flight. The instrument no longer contains any movable parts (an important improvement from the preceding UFT sensor family), and is light and compact (total mass of 1.6kg with housing). It allows to measure in-flight temperature fluctuations of the air with a response frequency better than 5 kHz at 60m/s (which corresponds to spatial resolution of ~2.5mm) and a thermal resolution better than 0.1K. Temperature is measured with a very fine (1.25μm diameter) Pt-Rd resistive wire, hidden behind the steel rod protecting the wire from the impact of particles suspended in the air.
The UFT2 is completely autonomous i.e. independent from aircraft instrumentation, power supply, data recording systems (cf. Figure 21). It consists of two sensing heads, amplifiers, dedicated data acquisition system and batteries. Data is stored on a memory flash card of capacity up to 32GB allowing for more than 24 hours of continuous data recording. In the present form the instrument can be used on “slow” flying aircraft (up to 60m/s), as at higher air speeds the sensing wire deteriorates and eventually breaks. Every sensor of the instrument requires independent calibration.

JRA2 - HYQUAPRO
In JRA2-HYQUAPRO the concept of Uncertainty Propagation Analysis (UPA) combined with Monte Carlo stochastic simulation has been applied to airborne hyperspectral imagery to explore how uncertainty of input parameters propagates through the processing chain. One promising way of visualising the results of the UPA and Monte Carlo stochastic simulation is through the exceedence map (cf. Figure 22), which indicates for example, the probability of the x- or y-coordinate deviating more than one pixel from the mean location.
Quality indicators/layers have been identified and selected for implementation in the processing chains. Beside the identification of quality indicators/layers, the data description that accompanies the hyperspectral data (metadata) has been harmonised. Harmonised quality layers (and data descriptors) were implemented and tested at the various PAFs (VITO/UZH, DLR, INTA, PML, USBE, TAU and FUB).
A literature review of water quality algorithms, from simple to complex approaches was undertaken and the preliminary results were presented at the Expert Working Group (EWG) meeting on Water Applications. PML continued with the algorithm review following advice on variables to consider from the EWG. PML investigated the development of an improved version of an Inherent Optical Properties model for use inland and in coastal waters.
For the integration of the PML higher performing water quality algorithms into an existing PAF, three algorithms were provided by PML to VITO: (i) Algorithm of Gitelson et al. (2007) for CHL-a retrieval; (ii) SeaWiFS OC4v6 algorithm of O’Reilly et al., 2000 for CHL-a retrieval; (iii) IOP model of Smyth et al. (2006) for IOP retrieval. The integration of these algorithms in the VITO PAF was tested with the Lake Balaton 2010 data set (NERC-ARSF AISA Eagle, in-situ and sun photometer data) provided by PML and the University of Stirling. The validation of water quality retrieval algorithms implemented by the VITO PAF processing chain was implemented at the stages of atmospheric correction and retrieval of water quality indicators, such as chlorophyll-a concentration, water IOPs and TSM concentration. The PML inherent optical property model has been updated to include optical water types with considerable improvements in retrieval of the absorption (in terms of RMSE). The backscatter was also improved but to a lesser extent in RMSE. The algorithm has now been optimised resulting in a significant improvement in processing time (a factor of 23 faster). The IOP model, together with the other water quality algorithms, has been provided for in the EUFAR algorithm toolbox, and is now freely available.
GFZ has undertaken the development of higher performing soil algorithms under the double commitment of using methodologies where automation is possible, and offering multiple algorithms to the users. The focus was on offering both analytical and empirical algorithms for the determination of the following key soil products: clay, iron, carbonate, soil organic carbon, and soil moisture maps. The HYperspectral SOil MApper (HYSOMA) toolbox was developed and validated with 18 image datasets, and enables the production of 11 soil products associated with different methods for soil moisture content, soil organic carbon content, and soil minerals content (iron oxides, clay, carbonates) for every input image file, plus 1 soil quality layer file, and 4 mask files. For the integration of the GFZ higher performing soil algorithms into an existing PAF an automatic version of HYSOMA was developed under the name HYSOMA_AUTO. HYSOMA_AUTO runs without interface under the IDL command prompt and was integrated in the automated DLR processing chain. The validation of the HYSOMA products based on various in-situ validation data sets showed correlations from R2 of 0.52 (clay) up to >0.9 (soil moisture) which both validate the HYSOMA software and provide science validation for the soil algorithms. Figure 23 shows the HYSOMA GUI and 5 soil products, 1 soil mask and 1 quality layer produced with the HYSOMA for a HyMap input image.
The HYSOMA software was adapted to be included in the EUFAR Toolbox. For this, a public release version was developed and the HYSOMA website (www.gfz-potsdam.de/hysoma) was released on June 29th, 2012, to which the EUFAR Toolbox is directly linked. After registration and accepting the license, HYSOMA is available for download. Plug-ins for linux/mac/windows are available on this website. The software is IDL based and distributed for free under the IDL-virtual machine, so that it is easy to use for non-expert users.

JRA3 - ALIDS
Defining the initial specifications of the airborne instruments, such as the main driver parameters, was partly based on the theoretical approach in using Lorenz-Mie computations, and partly on experimental one in testing and validating different optical setup configurations of ILIDS (cf. Figure 24). The geometry of the instrument has to provide the optimal measurement performances while satisfying the constraints of aircraft implementation. Concerning the processing of the raw data acquired by the ALIDS instrument, the strategy adopted is based on a global and simultaneous analysis of all the droplets present on each frame. This method decreases the time processing and allows scientists to obtain information on cloud droplets diameter in real time during the aircraft flight.
The specifications of ALIDS were refined with regard to the different constraints (geometry, volume and mass of the probe, aircraft requirements) and to the final design of the optical part of the instrument. The optical setup was initially built on optical table with standard components, and intensively tested in order to validate simulation results and real time data processing. The conclusion of this project phase was the identification and the purchase of the instrument components such as laser, camera, lenses and mirrors. The final 3D design of the ALIDS probe was then elaborated in considering all the parameters of the project and also the specifications of the aircraft ATR-42 of SAFIRE on which the ALIDS probe has to be certified (cf. Figure 25). The following steps included the construction of the mechanical structure and envelope of the ALIDS probe, its certification on the ATR-42, and the integration of all optical and electronic components. Laboratory tests were performed in order to check the functioning of the ALIDS instrument and to qualify the measurements of size distribution of droplets in using other techniques for intercomparison (cf. Figure 26).
The ALIDS instrument was implemented on the ATR-42 of SAFIRE (cf. Figure 27) and 2 flight tests were performed that have demonstrated the well-functioning of the instrument in an aircraft environment despite the areas for improvement that were identified (cf. Figure 28).

MGT – Management of the Consortium
During the project, 6 General Assembly (GA) meetings, 5 Steering Committee (SC) meetings and the Mid-Term Review meeting were organised by the EUFAR Office, with an average of 40 participants and 19 participants in the GA and SC meetings respectively (cf. Table 10). The EUFAR Office collectively managed the travel and subsistence (T&S) costs for attendees to the management meetings and to the networking meetings and workshops, for teachers and students attending the training courses, and for users of transnational access. Figure 29 shows to which extent the collective T&S budget was distributed amongst European and non-European countries. During the period between October 2008 and April 2012, 1.6% of the total allocation benefited to MF-CNRM, 66.8% to the most European involved countries, and the remaining percentage to other EU and non-EU countries.
Four periodic reports were submitted to the EC and two amendments to the contract were coordinated: (i) the amendment no.1 as approved by the EC on 9th August 2011, on administrative issues (termination of three beneficiaries, addition of two beneficiaries, addition of special clauses 10 and 30, addition of one installation, modification of legal entity details) ; (ii) the amendment no. 2, as approved by the European Commission on 17th December 2012, on administrative and scientific/technical issues (extension of the duration of the contract from 4 years to 5 years with no additional budget, modification of reporting periods, modification of Annex I – Description of Work, modification of legal entity details).
The dissemination activities of the EUFAR Office are numerous: update and distribution of advertisement material (posters, leaflets, flyers, cf. Figure 30), writing of newsletters, mailing, on-site publicity at various conferences and workshops, at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) conferences for example on an annual basis (cf. Figure 31), publicity on the EUFAR website including announcement of workshops and conferences in the field of geosciences on the EUFAR website, etc.

Potential Impact:
N1SAC – Scientific Advisory Committee
N1SAC provided an independent overview of EUFAR progress and achievements, and allowed experienced and eminent researchers to express their long-term strategic forward look on the development of European airborne research infrastructures. Their recommendations will benefit the EUFAR2 project (2014-2018), where issues such as the constitution of a sustainable structure, Open Access, the future of the fleet and innovation will be addressed for the optimum development of research infrastructures.

N2TAC – Transnational Access Coordination
One of the stated purposes of TA funding has been to provide access to research aircraft to both new users and to users who would not otherwise have access to such facilities. Table 11 shows the distribution of funding allocations and scientific users for the EUFAR FP7 TA programme.
This suggests that this principal aim of TA has been achieved. Hence, the majority of the funding has supported facilities operating in three of the main countries that have a long experience in airborne research and operate the larger facilities. However, the majority of users of these facilities have come from countries different from the facility providers.
Another stated purpose of the TA programme in EUFAR FP7 has been to achieve a higher demonstrable scientific impact than previous programmes. One good measure of this is that the supported research should lead to the publication of peer-reviewed papers in the scientific literature. A survey of the Principal Investigators of supported TA projects in early September 2013 gave encouraging results for peer-reviewed papers, either published, in preparation or planned for completion by early 2014 (cf. Table 12).

N3FF - Future of the Fleet
The N3FF activity collected and analysed information on the scientific demand for aircraft that are available in Europe and explored solutions for their possible development to support the optimum development of airborne research infrastructures. The whitebook ‘Stratospheric Aircraft in Europe’ is available from the EUFAR website and should be provided directly to and discussed with the respective EU officers in the context of the EUFAR2 contract (2014-2018).

N4EWG – Expert Working Groups
The EUFAR handbook on airborne measurements will inspire not only experienced researchers but also graduate students as the book intends to attract young researchers to this exciting scientific field. In addition, university teachers, scientists experienced in other fields and looking for additional airborne data, e.g. for validation or analysis of their own measurements, modellers, and project managers will find a concise overview of airborne scientific instrumentation to explore atmospheric and Earth's surface properties in this book.

N5ET – Education and Training
Through N5-ET the next-generation researchers were trained in performing airborne experiments. N5-ET provided during the 5 EUFAR training courses theoretical and practical training in airborne research to 100 selected participants (including 12 university lecturers) originating from 18 different member states or associated states. University lecturers are in a position to disseminate their gained knowledge further at their home institute thus enhancing the dissemination of knowledge and experience at the level of students and newly-qualified researchers, and as a consequence expand the user community. In addition, 15 students had the opportunity to join existing campaigns and receive tutoring from experienced researchers. With the knowledge gained during the training courses and participation in existing campaigns these N5-ET participants are better prepared to design and run a model airborne experiment.
To further disseminate the lectures and gained knowledge after the EUFAR training courses to a broader audience: (i) all presentations of the lecturers of the EUFAR training courses have been made accessible on the EUFAR website to registered users; (ii) participants of the EUFAR training courses prepared scientific working group reports which are also publicly available on the EUFAR website; (iii) for the REFLEX training course, a special issue on “Land-atmosphere exchanges of water, energy and carbon fluxes – The REFLEX 2012 Campaign” in Acta Geophysica was arranged.
Furthermore, collaboration between EUROSPEC and EUFAR N5-ET during the REFLEX training course attracted a broader audience to the training course and thus further expanding the user community.

N6SP – Standards and Protocols
N6-SP contributed to better structure and integrated the way in which the research infrastructures operate within EUFAR. The support of users and operators is guaranteed with the development of common protocols, the formulation of best practice and the provision of a multitude of analysis tools. Since there has been always a close cooperation within and between different Expert Working Groups as well as with N7DB and JRA2, there is a high acceptance of the different deliverables of N6SP within the EUFAR community. Through collaboration with the US network for airborne research, EUFAR’s work towards standards for real-time data transfer has been supported and recognised internationally. The standards for air-ground data links, data exchange and analysis in real time allow users to remotely participate to research flights.
To stimulate the adoption of the proposed standards, the two metadata creators for INSPIRE metadata and for Airborne Science Mission Data have been developed.
The work of the Networking Activity has been presented at different workshops outside EUFAR. The dissemination of the common standards and protocols has been made possible through the N6SP wiki, where the latest versions are also constantly uploaded. The access to the EGADS toolbox, to the toolboxes which have been developed within JRA2 as well as to the freely available toolboxes covering the topic of data analysis is also facilitated through the N6SP wiki. Users of EGADS can contribute to the further development of the toolbox through the EGADS discussion forum.

N7DB – Data Base
One of the primary long-term lasting outputs and impacts of the EUFAR project is the well-formed and well-documented data set compiled under the N7DB database activity. This archive grants online access to the data collected during the 154 flights/flightlines made for all 43 projects from a single central gateway and, to date, has been used by >70 users downloading 1.5TB in 4842 files over and above the use by the original project teams for which the data was collected.
The CEDA metadata catalogue records provide visibility and enable the wider discovery of EUFAR data through environmental portals such as the NERC Data Catalogue service and generally through internet search engines. The adoption of standard metadata and data formats ensure the long-term accessibility and readability of this dataset whilst benefitting from common tools for data manipulation, comparison and visualisation.
The long-term availability of this formatted, documented and accessible dataset allows for subsequent data re-use by users in the meteorological and atmospheric-science communities, the satellite remote sensing communities and the wider environmental scene far beyond the original purpose it was collected for. For example, the unique ephemeral atmospheric conditions of the specific in situ measurements can be used to improve weather-forecasting models and further the understanding of atmospheric processes, whilst the hyperspectral remote-sensed imagery of surface features has the potential to be reused by a range of disciplines such as coastal erosion, flooding, change of land use etc.
The use of the EUFAR archive, and its co-location at BADC/CEDA was extremely beneficial following the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull on 14 April 2010. At a time when all commercial aircraft were grounded for several days, the airborne research aircraft were deployed to carry out vital surveying and measurement flights. The EUFAR archive and BADC acted as a central repository to facilitate the sharing of information and data between EUFAR, UK aircraft and UK and European ground based instruments.
A further impact of the EUFAR project was to bring together the data managers from the EUFAR aircraft. This has enabled data managers to have a larger voice in discussions of international atmospheric and airborne data and metadata-standards IWGADTS, GMES-MACC) than we would have achieved independently.

N8EC – E-Communication
The EUFAR website is the unique and well-known portal to airborne research activities in Europe, providing facilities for a wide and more efficient access to airborne infrastructures, for the sharing of knowledge, and for coordinated management of the infrastructures. The EUFAR website attracts a wide range of people, and the facilities developed on this website serve not only for researchers and operators, but also cater for students, university teachers, and scientists experienced in other fields.

N9SST – Sustainable Structure
Even though N9SST did not succeed in constituting a sustainable legal structure for EUFAR, a deep reflexion on the governance structure statute was initiated during this project. The issue of constituting a sustainable structure is raised in two EC assessment reports based on public consultations led by the EC:
(i) In the draft assessment report on the maturity of the projects on the ESFRI roadmap (August 2013): the EUFAR project coordinator and the EUFAR2 scientific coordinator submitted on 15 December 2012 an answer to the questionnaire for ESFRI research infrastructures, focusing on EUFAR/COPAL, and were interviewed in Brussels by the EC on 24 January 2013. The outcome of the report and the discussion regarding the constitution of a sustainable structure is as follows. The legal structure has not yet been selected and even the selection of options is still on-going, although the general consensus is to consider the AISBL model, which seems more practical to implement in the short term, and the ERIC model for the Community long range aircraft for tropospheric research aircraft (COPAL) on a longer term. In this framework, COPAL would be a member of EUFAR, as a single-site infrastructure operating a plane jointly loaned by the COPAL partners.
(ii) In the assessment report on the "topics with high potential and with merit for future Horizon 2020 actions for integrating and opening existing national research infrastructures" (February 2013): during the second half of 2012, the EC organised a public consultation on "Possible topics for future activities for integrating and opening national research infrastructure". An expression of interest in airborne research was submitted by the EUFAR project coordinator to the EC on 22 October 2012. The assessment report lists the "topics with high potential and with merit for future Horizon 2020 actions for integrating and opening existing national research infrastructures". The topic “ENV18: European Facilities for Airborne Research in Environmental and Geoscience (with development of a sustainable access scheme)” will be one of the items addressed by the calls for Research Infrastructures’ proposals in Horizon 2020. However this topic is not scheduled in the European Research Infrastructures Work Programme 2014-2015 for Horizon 2020, but the EUFAR2 project will tackle the key task of actively promoting the necessity of having this topic addressed in the next Work Programme (2016-2017).
The ultimate objective of EUFAR is that all researchers get access on equal terms to a large fleet of instrumented aircraft irrespective of their institutional affiliation and of which country operates the aircraft. “Equal terms” means that access proposals are selected based on scientific merit only, and that financial issues related to the aircraft operation are managed at the institutional level. The Forum on Open Access was part of the ICARE-2010 conference. The agreement was first discussed with experts on legal issues and then the scheme was presented to a large community of aircraft operators and representatives of the national research organisations (during the forward-look meeting on airborne geo-science). The benefits of the Open Access scheme are (i) to develop the user base in the countries with no research aircraft; (ii) to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to the scientists from these countries.
For countries already operating research aircraft, the Open Access scheme agreements could be based on exchange of access between research infrastructures, as already implemented for research vessels (OFEG). For countries with no research infrastructure to barter, contributions to the operational costs could be made in cash or in kind, for instance by dispatching scientific personnel (contributions in skill) to the operator’s premises. The Open Access scheme is intended to establish a transparent way of granting access to the facilities forming part of the Open Access scheme network and to extend access beyond that already supported by the European Commission as Transnational Access, principally by developing the coordination framework that will facilitate access to all European research aircraft. For the MoU signatories committed to this project, this task may include the following: (i) where airborne facilities are funded to a significant degree by national research funding institutions, to invite and encourage these institutions to commit themselves to offering access to their aircraft as a contribution in kind (Joint Facilities); (ii) drawing up, developing and running a governance model for the evaluation of proposals and allocation of access to the Joint Facilities; (iii) drawing up, developing and running a system of exchange and training of scientific personnel between the members. During RP3, this issue was discussed during the Steering Committee meetings (11-12 October 2011, 25 June 2012 and 26 October 2012) and the action (Action 7) was approved at the General Assembly 05 meeting (11 March 2013).
The proposed strategy is to merge the COPAL and EUFAR objectives in order to implement the Open Access scheme. EUFAR is a network of operators and some of them are also research funding institutions. Some COPAL partners are research funding institutions not operating any aircraft which could actively contribute to the EUFAR network. Therefore, it was agreed that the research funding institutions members of COPAL will join the EUFAR network and take a lead role in the N3FF activities for the development of the fleet. These research funding institutions will also play an active role in the joint implementation of Transnational Access (funded by the EU) and Open Access (jointly funded by the EUFAR members).

JRA1 - DENCHAR
Water vapour is one of the most important parameters in weather prediction and climate research. Accurate and reliable airborne measurements of water vapour are a pre-requisite to study the underlying processes in the chemistry and physics of the atmosphere. Currently, no airborne humidity sensor exists that covers the entire range of water vapour content of more than four order of magnitude between the surface and the UT/LS region with sufficient accuracy and time resolution, not to speak of the technical requirements for quasi-routine operation. The new in JRA1-DENCHAR developed instruments like SEALDH and WaSul has moved the scientific community a big step forward in achieving a dynamic range of four orders of magnitude for atmospheric measurements.
JRA1 has provided a suite of well proven airborne hygrometers, which are very well characterised and ready to be operated on any EUFAR research aircraft. JRA1 has improved airborne hygrometry resulting in significant benefits for atmospheric research. Particular the JRA1-hygrometers like SEALDH, and WaSul have achieved a high level of maturity with good to very good performance characteristics for measuring water vapour volume mixing ratios from 20,000 ppmv down to 10-20 ppmv with an overall uncertainty of better than 10% and a time response of better than 1 second. These are remarkable results compared to the airborne performance of conventional airborne chilled mirror instruments, which are nowadays still used on a large number of research aircraft. At mixing ratios below 1000 ppmv, the response times of these chilled mirror instruments, included the cryogenic frost point hygrometer, are at least 10 times larger and by far not that reliable in their performance than the SEALDH and WaSul instruments have proven. JRA1 has shown that the new instruments are very good candidates to replace conventional instruments in order to obtain more reliable, much faster and more accurate measurements than the existing aircraft hygrometer types based on chilled mirror technology.
New routine aircraft programmes like IAGOS and CARIBIC will benefit from the results of the outcome of this JRA1. For example the WaSul instrument had been selected in the European funded IGAS-project to be part of new instrument developments for future IAGOS- operation on in-service aircraft. The dual channel of the WaSul particularly makes the instrument most favorable to carry out gaseous and total water measurements with one and the same instrument. This has been meanwhile recognised by the international community of cloud research. One prototype will fly in the near future aboard one Canadian research aircraft, and further developments will be continued in the IGAS-project.
Through the thorough intercomparison of the WVSS-II, in the laboratory as well as in-flight operation, this will also have an important impact towards the E-AMDAR community, who are in the process of selecting a water vapour instrument to implement in their network of in-service aircraft.
The new UFT2 instrument is a standalone, autonomous operating instrument that once installed on a low-speed research aircraft, the aircraft is ready to be deployed for turbulence measurements.

JRA2 - HYQUAPRO
The harmonised quality layers and metadata accompanying hyperspectral imagery and data products developed within HYQUAPRO will facilitate the inter-comparison and interpretation of the quality of hyperspectral products not only by remote sensing specialists but also by less experienced users from other scientific disciplines (e.g. climate change and ecosystem modellers). HYQUAPRO developments will improve the user-confidence and the wider utility of hyperspectral datasets. Furthermore the quality information allows users to better judge the fitness-for-use of the hyperspectral imagery and the providers of hyperspectral imagery to identify elements that need improvement in their processing chains.
Validated water quality products (Chl-a, IOP) are now available to users through the VITO processing facility. The PML IOP algorithm and the other water quality algorithms are freely available through the EUFAR toolbox. The HYSOMA toolbox developed in HYQUAPRO is freely made available for download for non-commercial purposes through both the N6SP EUFAR Toolbox and the HYSOMA website. DLR has integrated HYSOMA automatic soil functions in their automated processing chain and is after a successful validation phase able to provide HYSOMA products to users. A version of HYSOMA adapted for satellite applications of soil spectral imagery will be implemented in the toolbox of the EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Programme) - Germany's hyperspectral Earth observation satellite to be launched in 2017. Presently more than 60 users from all over the world have downloaded a plug-in of the HYSOMA software interface, demonstrating the interest of the airborne community for this software. HYSOMA users are coming mainly from research/academic institutions, national geological surveys, and also some mapping/ remote sensing companies. The HYSOMA user community is well distributed over the five continents with ~50% originating from Europe. A user-friendly GUI allows for use of the HYSOMA to be extended to less experienced users such as users from other scientific disciplines, thus significantly expanding the user community to new scientific domains.
HYQUAPRO results relating to uncertainty propagation were peer-reviewed and published in IEEE TGRS. Together with other HYQUAPRO results, these were presented at several international scientific conferences.

JRA3 - ALIDS
The exploitation of the JRA3 results will benefit to a wide scientific community through technology transfer as follows: (i) implementation of the ALIDS integrated airborne probe on AIRBUS and ZODIAC in the framework of the HAIC project; (ii) development of an innovating airborne probe meeting the needs of the scientific community focusing on the physics of the atmosphere, in terms of drop characterisation in the diameter range from 20 to 200 µm; (iii) evolution of the ALIDS probe towards detection and characterisation of the ice particles and potentially the volcanic ash.

MGT – Management of the Consortium
The managerial experience gained through this project will benefit the EUFAR2 project (2014-2018), particularly in terms of efficient practice and reporting guidance.
List of Websites:
EUFAR Project Coordinator:
Dr Jean-Louis Brenguier
Tel: +33 5 61 07 93 21
Email: Jean-Louis.Brenguier@meteo.fr; bureau@eufar.net

EUFAR Project Manager:
Dr Élisabeth Gérard
Tel: +33 5 61 07 98 38
Email: bureau@eufar.net

EUFAR website: http://www.eufar.net

Other contact details provided in the attached document

Final Report Summary - EUFAR (EUROPEAN FACILITY FOR AIRBORNE RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND GEOSCIENCE)

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