aviation - the past, present and future of flight

mission,” said Brieger. “The aircraft can

actually reach the stratosphere – it has a

ceiling of 51,000ft. It also has a range of

8,500nm, depending on the payload.”

Brieger explained the G550 was chosen for

the HALO platform after a thorough analysis.

The relevant research institutes gave DLR a

list of capabilities they required and a shortlist

of suitable aircraft was drawn up.

“This was mainly driven by the

atmospheric research community,” he

revealed. “We were looking for an aircraft

with a very high ceiling, a lengthy endurance

and the ability to carry a large payload.

In the early 2000s, when the decision

was made, the two airframers that were

capable of producing such an aircraft were

Bombardier and Gulfstream. Gulfstream has

a long heritage of special-mission aircraft.”

HALO is no ordinary G550, featuring a

plethora of special modi cations. Some

of this work was carried out by Gulfstream

in Savannah and some was completed in-

house by DLR.

“In the fuselage we have in the order

of 30 breakthroughs for trace gas inlets

and antennas; that was done partly by

Gulfstream and partly by RUAG here [in

Oberpfaffenhofen], just across the air eld,”

Brieger revealed. “Modi cations such as

the belly pod, PMS [particle measurement

system] carriers and end of wing pods were

developed by DLR.”

FLYING CLASSROOM

At the lower end of the spectrum, DLR operates

a Cessna Caravan from Oberpfaffenhofen,

which it uses as a  ying classroom. The

single-engine turboprop is used to provide

an introductory course in  ight testing for

aeronautical students from universities

around Germany. It is equipped with seven

workstations in the cabin, providing each

student with their own individual display, which

they can con gure to their own requirements.

“It displays all the relevant  ight

parameters in real time and it is recorded

in the data acquisition system for post- ight

analysis etc,” explained Brieger.

http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 37

Main photo: The largest aircraft in the  eet is

Airbus A320 D-ATRA. AirTeamImages.com/

HAMFive

Above left: The G550 is fuelled up prior to

another sortie.

Above right: Some of the modi cations to the

G550 were carried out in-house.

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