Falcon coordinator: Martin Weissmann Aircraft manager: Andrea Hausold Falcon Steering Committee (SC): M. Weissmann, P. Harr, T. Nakazawa, S. Jones, H.-S. Lee, R. McTaggart-Cowan, J. Dibbern Contributing institutions and financial project share: DLR (34%), NSF (28%), JMA (14%), FZK (10%), METRI (6%), Env. Canada (6%, tbc), EUCOS (2%) Major non-financial contributions: Support by US Navy and Air Force DLR Falcon instrumentation and DLR scientists FZK staff JMA support for operations planning support and all other observations... T-PARC Falcon operations

airport base: Atsugi, Japan alternative airports: Okinawa, Misawa (?), Iwo Jima (?), Korea (?) flight time: 90 h plus 30 h for transfer observations in transfer tbc transfer permission through Russia tbc planned schedule total: 7-8 weeks incl. transfer/integration takeoff in Germany: 21 Aug 2008 arrival in Japan: 24/25 August 2008 last day in Japan: 4 October (~6 weeks in Japan) arrival in Germany: 7/8 October real-time data: dropsondes (through DWD?) near real-time: aircraft in-situ, lidar quicklooks non-realtime: lidar data lidar, QC aircraft data Transfer through Russia: Germany-Moscow-Surgut-Bratsk-Khabarovsk-Japan Permission for aircraft and observations? Intend to apply for a Joint Research program with Roshydromet max. range: NM max altitude: 12.8 km (42 kft) Falcon plans T-PARC 2008

Falcon instrumentation scanning coherent 2 µm Doppler lidar: conical scans with 24 positions  24 LOS observations (~30/54 s)  vertical profile of 3-D wind vector horiz. resolution km vert. resolution 100 m range: km accuracy: m/s Doppler lidar 20° off nadir dropsondes, u, v, t, rh, p first 4 wavelength water vapour DIAL worldwide ~ nm, 100 Hz, > 2 W parameter: water vapour molecule number (+height of cloud tops) horiz. resolution: km vert. resolution: m accuracy: 5-10 % DIAL + HSRL for aerosol?

Optimal use of Falcon instrumentation Simulator for lidar coverage to optimize flight routing (work in progress) (1) ECMWF forecasts of Clouds, RH, T (2) GEMS aerosol forecasts DLR is bringing a unique scientific instrumentation to the campaign that needs to be considered in flight routing. Long straight legs and and little clouds are preferable for lidars --> trade-off with science ideas

Mission objectives for the Falcon (open for discussion) Primary: - Typhoon targeting (20-50%) - ET and downstream impact (30-50%) Secondary objectives for non-Typhoon periods (10-30%) - Observation targeting and observation impact (e.g. ridge building, targeting for medium-range forecasts, targeting for verification region over Pacific) - Cirrus/contrail formation - Water vapour transport from tropics to extra-tropics / Diabatic Rossby Waves - Asian aerosol export - Boundary layer build up during daytime over ocean. - Sub tropical high structure - Kuroshio-current and convective activity The percentages are rough estimates as missions selection is based on weather conditions, but we should make an effort to use at least 30% for ET and 20% for Typhoon targeting

Proposal for decision making (1) Fundamental research and operational issues are decided by the Falcon SC SC members may appoint representatives or other SC members to represent their interests SC decisions are expected to be unanimous and shall regard the financial project share of the partners 3 expert teams will be established for Typhoon, ET and secondary objectives (same as T-PARC expert teams?) The decisions on missions shall be based on priorities defined in the Project Agreement and Operations Plan - largest funding contributions for ET missions - priority for "high-impact" weather events - relatively rare occurence of ET - a reasonable number of cases to work with for every partner - optimal use of the Falcon instrumentation (e.g. avoiding clouds, curves etc.)

The T-PARC daily planing meeting shall select missions and assign a responsible expert out of the 3 teams (2-3 days before possible mission) In case of conflicting research interests every SC member may request that the decision on the Falcon use is moved to a discussion that is restricted to SC members The assigned expert is responsible for coordinating research ideas from the expert team and for planning the mission in cooperation with the Falcon coordinator (or representative). The easiest situation is if an expert is located at Atsugi (Nakwzawa, Sarah), but that will not always be possible... They will iterate a possible flight plan (as time allows) and need to come to an agreement on a general outline of the flight. The final flight plan needs to be made in Atsug with pilots and lidar scientists on the day before the flight. Great observations will require (1) a good science idea and (2) experience how to implement the idea into practice with a particular aircraft and instrumentation. The final decision regarding staff, aircraft, and instrument safety is always up to pilots and instrument PIs Proposal for decision making (2)