UNOLS SCOAR Meeting - November 12, 2004

Scientific Committee for Oceanographic Aircraft Research (SCOAR)
Web/Telephone Conference Meeting
November 12, 2004

To download a pdf version of this report click <200411scomi.pdf>

Executive Summary
The UNOLS Scientific Committee for Oceanographic Aircraft Research (SCOAR) held a one day meeting using telephone and web conferencing through the UNOLS Office on November 12th, 2004. This was the fourth meeting of the committee with a focus on Safety Standards and Operating procedures for UNOLS National Oceanographic Aircraft Facilities (NOAF). Reports by Agency representatives and CIRPAS included progress with NSF’s HIAPER aircraft, changes in NASA’s structure for aircraft utilization and NOAA’s aircraft operations. NOAA and CIRPAS provided extensive information on their safety standards and operating procedures. The committee also reviewed draft guidelines for becoming a UNOLS NOAF. Besides the safety standards, other UNOLS aircraft operations procedures were reviewed, including the aircraft request form, scheduling and funding mechanisms. The committee agreed to nominate Dick Zimmerman of Old Dominion University as a new member of the Committee.

Recommendations
o Develop more information on instrumentation development and how the ocean science community can effectively use the SBIR program.

Welcome and Introductions
The UNOLS Scientific Oceanographic Aircraft Committee (SCOAR) meeting was held via Web and telephone conference on Friday, November 12, 2004. At 0810 attendees began logging into the meeting. John Bane, SCOAR Chair, called the meeting to order. Introductions were made. Meeting participants were John Bane, Ken Melville, Charlie Flagg, Dan Riemer, Haf Jonsson, Beth White, Cheryl Yuhas, Deb Barr, Rob Poston and Mike Prince

Accept the minutes of the March 2004 SCOAR Meeting
A motion was made and approved to accept the minutes of the March 2004 meeting.

Agency Reports

NOAA – Beth White
• Beth reports that it was a very busy year at NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) as a result of the very active hurricane season this year. The P-3s and G-IV completed many surveillance and reconnaissance missions, even though their base of operations was moved to New Orleans International Airport on several occasions because of mandatory evacuations of MacDill AFB and Tampa. Fortunately there were no injuries or damage to NOAA’s employees, aircraft or aircraft facilities. Dr. McFadden is not able to attend this meeting because he is in Canada preparing for a NESDIS project called Ocean Winds in February. Ocean Winds is a satellite scatterometer calibration/validation mission. Although possibly previously reported, NOAA acquired a third Twin Otter, which is used primarily for marine mammal surveys. NOAA also acquired a replacement Turbo Commander which is based in Chanhassen, Minnesota and is used for snow surveys. NOAA is continuing to instrument the G-IV jet to enhance and increase data acquisition during hurricane season surveillance missions and winter storm surveys. A budget request is currently in place to hire personnel who will be able to perform sensor maintenance on the new instrumentation, to do data assimilation and reduction, perform data quality control, etc. for ingestion in hurricane and storm forecast models.

• Question from John Bane about how much time might be available to university investigators to use the Twin Otters.

• There are times when planned projects drop out and there is time available on relatively short notice. Otherwise the Twin Otters are normally fully scheduled. Many of NOAA’s lighter aircraft are primarily operated as reimbursable assets and therefore the Aircraft Operations Center would welcome outside utilization when they can’t fully utilize the airframe. A figure of 250 flight hours per year on an airframe is sometimes used as a minimum benchmark to determine whether an airframe is being effectively utilized or should be excessed.

• One NOAA Shrike and two helicopters (MD-500 and Bell 212) are currently not being utilized to this capacity.

• There are scientists in NOAA who would like to see a Twin Otter permanently stationed on the west coast, perhaps somewhere mid-way between Alaska and Southern California. This would reduce ferry costs they currently pay to get an aircraft from Tampa and back. Charlie Flagg suggested the possibility of stationing an aircraft at the CIRPAS facility in Monterey. There was a brief discussion on the benefits of a co-location of facilities, including the benefits to NOAA for working with people involved in UAV operations.

• On November 1, a Change of Command ceremony took place at NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center. Captain Bob Maxson retired and Captain Steve Kozak assumed command of AOC.

• John asked if NOAA could provide a summary of FY 04 Scientific missions. Beth and Lieutenant Commander Deb Barr will try to put together prior to the next meeting.

NASA/ICCAGRA – Cheryl Yuhas
• Exploration vision from the President has become an over-riding emphasis for all areas of NASA. Aeronautics and Earth Science projects are examined to determine how they contribute to the Exploration mission.

• Earth Science and Space Science enterprises were merged in August to form the Science Mission Directorate, which comprises approximately half the agency’s budget.

• The catalogue approach to providing aircraft is going forward. This approach provides NASA investigators with a variety of aircraft services:

• Experimental platform project is working with both advanced aircraft such the Scaled Composites Proteus and White Knight (the Rutan aircraft which launched X-Prize winner SpaceShipOne), as well as UAVs such as Altair, Predator B and Globalhawk. NASA anticipates starting to use UAVs more routinely in field experiments as early as FY2005.

• Cheryl reviewed some of the science missions over the past year: Aura Validation, INTEX (part of ICARTT), Antarctic Sea Ice, Central & South America AirSAR, and Soil Moisture Experiment. Their P3 has been down and they have used the NRL P3 for 2 missions.

• Missions in FY2005 include the ongoing Aura validation, the Tropical Clouds Systems and Processes experiment as our priority campaigns. We anticipate additional missions for the Hydrology program, such as Soil Moisture, but no specifics are planned yet.

• Non-NASA reimbursable cost for the ER2 and WB57 is $6500/hour. For other aircraft, NASA-sponsored investigations will be charged $2500/hour for high-altitude missions, $4000/hour for heavy-lift missions, and light aircraft (e.g. Twin Otters, KingAirs) whatever the operator charges.

• NASA is experiencing the same Catch-22 as many other aircraft operators: Not enough money to fully utilize aircraft, which makes them more expensive per hour, which in turn reduces utilization further.

• Explained the exploration mission. Exploration is human presence outside of the earth’s orbit to other planets, etc. Science component would be understanding the environment where humans would go.

• NSF hosted a community workshop on use of aircraft for Antarctic research, and most ICCAGRA agencies participated. The community is most interested in acquiring an LC-130 (ski-equipped C130), although multiple aircraft options were under consideration.

• The costs of maintaining the aircraft are becoming so expensive that in some cases the agency can only afford one mission a year after paying for just having the aircraft. The idea of having a UNOLS model for aircraft was discussed. This means that we have a national clearing house of requirements.

• Discussion about how this would work with federal agency operators and university run aircraft. Does not seem to matter whom operates the aircraft if they agree to cooperatively schedule the aircraft to fully utilize the available aircraft and get as many projects into the field as possible.

• What is the utilization data for the existing fleet of aircraft and what are the requirements for the future use of aircraft. What mix and number of assets are required. We will need some uniformity of sensors, airworthiness standards, etc. for this to work.

• Need a fleet renewal plan to for aircraft…this would be a joint effort between the university communities and the agencies.

• How would you get this started? Perhaps the NRC could ask that this be done, identify the needs for earth observing using aircraft and satellites.

• NOAA is hosting a workshop in Boulder regarding the use of UAV’s for Earth science, jointly sponsored with DOE and NASA. The primary science objectives are based on the Climate Change Science Program’s observing strategy, and the objective of the workshop is to formulate requirements for an interagency initiative.

SCOAR Action Item: letter to the community about the need for a long range assessment of aircraft/satellite requirements.

NSF report – A brief summary of Jim Hunning’s written report was read. (Appendix III)

• There are some issues with regards to the budget for operating the aircraft that may come at the expense of other programs. They have not increased the number of FTE’s to fully utilize two aircraft. This may limit the number of field experiments that can be supported. The number of crews available may not be adequate to fully utilize all of the aircraft.

• This is a top priority for NCAR for the next couple of years and they really feel the need to make it a success.

UNOLS - Mike Prince
• Mike gave a brief report on UNOLS fleet renewal efforts for new research vessels including:

• There was some discussion about the helicopter and UAV support that the X-Craft might provide.

CIRPAS – Haf Jonsson
• Five missions with twin otter, lots of missions with both Pelicans and missions with the AUV’s.

• Ocean Survey flights for Steve Ramp: Bi-weekly flights mapping sea surface temperature and taking atmospheric measurements all through 2003 through March 2004.

• NASA-sponsored measurements – photometer measurements (EVE) as far out as possible, coordinated with Satellite measurements.

• Down for a couple of days during Dean’s mission due to a bad regulator and loss of power.

• August went to Cleveland in a huge experiment called ICART with John Seinfeld, air chemistry and cloud formation. Had 11 aircraft and a number of vessels and ground measurements.

• This ended the year and the plane went to Carlsbad for maintenance to repair corrosion and repainting

• Next year they have a proposal into ONR with four projects. They are hearing from DOE and NASA. [Draft Schedule]

• Approximate budget of $1.3M. Flew about 270 hours last year, which is marginal for keeping their people employed but with Pelican flight hours they were fully employed. Looking at around 300 hours of flying which keeps the science side of the house busy, but is a little light for the ops people. It has been useful to move the ops people to the Pelican’s to keep them busy. More than 300 hours and four missions would be beyond the science support capability. May need to shift some of the science workload to the science users. They are hoping they can get more science support from CALTECH.

• CALTECH contract is coming up for renewal next year. Thinking about getting CALTECH out of flying the aircraft and more into payload and instrument development activities. They would use contractors for operations support.

• John Bane asked how we could strengthen the interaction and support from SCOAR for CIRPAS. What would make the situation better for CIRPAS:

Safety Standards
• SCOAR goal is to provide guidance regarding safety standards for UNOLS NOAF.

• John Bane introduced the concept. Talked about the nature of safety standards for UNOLS vessels that are uninspected. With aircraft, most are already operating under Federal Regulations or Agency regulations for public aircraft. John’s sense is that there are sufficient safety and operations regulations in place already for most aircraft. The UNOLS standards could merely indicate the level of regulations that should be adhered to.

• Rob Poston, NOAA Corps CDR, AOC in Tampa Operations Division. Flies G4 for NOAA and is Dept. Chief for Operations Division.

• Generally follows FAA Part 91 of the aviation regulations. They are inspected by the local FAA Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) inspectors. Most of the NOAA aircraft, except the P3’s have airworthiness certificates. Their procedures are contained in the AOC Aircraft Operations Manual (Appendix IV)

• They follow all the procedures for making modifications as if they were going to ask for a Supplemental Type Certificate for a single aircraft or for a class of aircraft. They could devise a kit that could be applicable to other aircraft operators. They could get a field approval from the FAA with a simple form (337 form). They will always do the 337 form, even if FAA does not require it.

• P3’s are not certificated by the FAA and so they can do what ever they want. However they try to adhere to Navy inspectors.

• If NOAA does not adhere to the FAA airworthiness programs, then they would have to maintain their own. They use the FAA inspection methods, but they conduct their own inspections. They meet or exceed all the manufacturers’ guidelines.

• Ken Melville asked what developments the Federal Government is looking at with regards to low level flight rules/inspections. A big concern was salt/water ingestion into the engine and the possibility of corrosion and engine failure. They now do an engine wash after every low level flight. They are all authorized for flights down to 500 feet, but the Commanding officer can authorize flights below 500 feet, down to 200 feet.

• The towed sled would allow getting lower to the surface, but would probably not be useful in getting data in high winds or turbulent air.

• NASA’s program grew out of Air Force procedures, they have their own internal air-worthiness program. The NASA aircraft are not maintaining the Aircraft Type Certificates. They are operating as Public (State) aircraft.

• NOAA has found that it is simpler sometimes to maintain the ATC when going to foreign operating areas. The P3’s could be certificated, but it would take a lot of money and time. NASA’s DC8, P3’s. NASA maintains their own airworthiness programs for their DC-8 and P-3s.

• Discussed how it is determined what regulations would apply to various operations.

• Standards for Scientists – safety issues that apply to bringing scientists on board. Allows scientists planning to use aircraft to know whether or not it is safe to send people on board the aircraft.

• Department of Interior Aviation Management Directorate (AMD) inspections and standards are used for chartering aircraft. AMD in Interior maintains a list of qualified aircraft. This could be a clearing house for safe aircraft or a set of standards to adhere to.

• In addition to DOI/AMD other agencies/organizations such as DOE, NASA and ICAP are all capable of looking at programs at operating institutions.

• CIRPAS operates their aircraft as Public Aircraft and they have a process using an engineering firm to create a modification to an airframe. They then use another engineering firm to test post modification to ensure it is safe and to determine what the operating parameters should be. This is a wholly internal airworthiness process. They have a separate maintenance certification program. They adhere to FAA regulations for operations. They use a Navy flight certification person from NPS to certify the aircraft.

• Comment from Bob Bluth after meeting: CIRPAS operates their aircraft as Public Use - State (Department of State). Since NPS is part of the DoD, when we contract out for flight services, we use a D-FAR (Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation) clause. This is the only way any DoD entity can operate aircraft under contract. Bob sent two documents, first is the Flight Risk Clause (Appendix V) and the other is the DoD manual referenced in this clause (Appendix VI). These two documents along with the CIRPAS flight procedures govern all flight safety issues. He'll pass on a copy of their procedures later.

• Bob ended up getting in touch with the FAA's Western Pacific Region Counsel, Monroe Balton on this awhile back (as directed in AC 20-132, the advisory circular that points out public aircraft cannot operate outside of US without a valid airworthiness certificate). In AC 20-132, "State Aircraft" are given a broad definition. In fact, an update to AC 20-132 (AC 00-1.1) tries to better define aircraft that qualify as public/state aircraft and references changes to public law to do the same. State aircraft are excluded from the airworthiness certificate requirement to operate outside US per Article 3 of Convention on International Civil Aviation (to which the US is a party). It was the determination of the West-Pac Counsel that the CIRPAS Otter and Pelican aircraft qualify as state aircraft. He was very clear.

• Use existing regulations and standards to the extent possible. Charlie Flagg provided a list of Federal Regulations that might apply to UNOLS aircraft operations (Appendix VII)
• Have a method for verifying that public use standards and airworthiness programs meet or exceed FAA and/or ICAP regulations or guidelines.

• North Dakota aircraft operate under part 135? How do they operate? Review standards, flight readiness review and preflight review. Cheryl will provide the written NASA instructions.

• Public Use – surrenders ATC and operates under their own air-worthiness certification programs.

• Flight training – not necessarily required by Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR)

• Medical requirements for scientists based on elevation of operations or a signed statement.

• Mission Crew – No emergency tasks, but get orientation and emergency training.

• Action Item – Draft an outline for a set of safety standards – SCOAR draft as a group, led by Charlie Flagg.

• Draft document was circulated (Appendix VIII). Some minor changes are still needed to convert from ships to aircraft. Major stumbling block at this point is the lack of safety standards. We could change the references to specific safety regulations and insert UNOLS safety standards as the benchmark. We would then wait until the UNOLS Operations and Safety Standards are complete.

• Described the simple form which has two basic parts: I) who, when, where; and II) a section on what sensors and services they would need.

• So far, Haf has emailed the word document version of the form and no one has used the online form.

• Talked about the need to break the sensor suites into standard sensors and then specialized sensors by category or plane configuration, reorganized on the form. SCOAR needs to review the list of standard instrumentation one more time to be sure it meets the needs of ocean scientists (Appendix IX)

• Questions asked about whether checking off on a certain sensor would affect the cost, should costs be shown.

• Instruments, deployable sensors, etc. that need to be integrated into the aircraft. This is covered by the last block on the form.

• Discussed the need for mentors for all these instruments and are all instruments really necessary on this request form/list.

• ACTION ITEM: Reorganize form using suggestions from committee and CIRPAS. Add detail/explanation pages form for some (or all) of the sensors.

• RECOMMENDATION: Develop more information on instrumentation development and how the ocean science community can effectively use the SBIR program.

• ACTION ITEM: Final review of standard instrumentation to be sure ocean sciences are covered. (Appendix IX)

• John reviewed the concept of facilities funding for NOAF facilities and his discussions with Jim Yoder and Mike Reeve.

• Mike Reeve indicated that just because the facility is designated by UNOLS does not mean that NSF is obligated to fund that in a certain way.

• Proposal pressure may be necessary before any real change in made in funding mechanisms.

• Action item: Mike and Haf prepare a draft schedule and post on SCOAR web site.

Letter to the community about the need for a long-range assessment of aircraft/satellite requirements	SCOAR - Bane
Draft an outline for a set of safety Standards- SCOAR to draft as a group	led by Charlie Flagg
Reorganization of request form with suggestions from committee.CIRPAS add detail/explanation pages for some (or all) of the sensors.	Haf and UNOLS Office
Final review of standard instrumentation to be sure ocean sciences are covered	SCOAR
John to send a message to Peter Wiebe recommending Dick Zimmerman for new member	John Bane - (done)
Mike Prince and Haf Jonsson to prepare a draft schedule and post on SCOAR Website.	Haf and Mike