No further activity is planned for the weekend of Feb. 1; the rest of the equipment will be uninstalled the following week. This conclides the field part of HIPPO Global Phase I.

Saturday Jan. 31: Partial payload removal will take place. Racks and seats will be removed from the right side of the cabin to allow removal of the QCLS rack. No power or user access will be provided. QCLS and CO2 racks will be shipped to Harvard and the Harvard team will depart Jeffco.

Friday Jan. 30: RF11 from San Jose to Jeffco. Power and access start at 0800, estimated departure time is 1000 local. If by any chance MEDUSA flasks will appear at the hangar by 0800, we will delay the departure by an hour to replace them and prepare for flight. Estimated flight duration is 7 hours. Crew departs from Ramada at 0745 on a shuttle. We have received a research permit from Mexico; however it is not clear if this makes a difference at this time with regard to our ability to do dips in the MX airspace because there is no time to coordinate dips with the ATC. We hope to do at least two dips and a missed approach at Ponca City but the actual flight will depend on the ATC which was entirely uncooperative on the last flight.

Thursday Jan. 29: Maintenance day in MROC. We meet in the lobby of Ramada at 0845 to depart to the GV. Power and access will be provided from 0900 until the maintenance tasks are completed. There will be a work space and internet access at the hangar so if you are finished with maintenance you can work on the data and e-mail from there. We will not obtain rental cars this time and will use Ramada's shuttle to move back and forth between the hangar and the hotel. Please don't forget items necessary for maintenance. At 10 am there will be a visit from the US Ambassador and CR Minister of Science and Technology; at 12 am there will be a web conference NSF news brief.

Wednesday Jan. 28: RF10 from Easter Island to San Jose, Costa Rica. Departre is at 1230, power on and access at 0930 in case of a possible early departure. Meeting in the hotel lobby ready to go at 0900. Check out from the hotel (a task by itself, as it turned out) was completed the night before.

Tuesday Jan. 27: Maintenance day in Easter Island.

Monday Jan. 26: Arrival from Tahiti is a night flight. Possible access to the GV after 4 pm local time; most likely no access to the GV with a maintenance day following.

Sunday Jan. 25: RF09 from Tahiti to Easter Island. Take-off at 1630 local, departure from the hotel at 1230, power and access at 1300 local. Estimated duration 6.5 hours. ETA 0345 local time.

Saturday Jan. 24: Hard down day in Tahiti. No power or access to the GV.

Friday Jan. 23 U.S. time (Saturday Jan. 24 NZ time): RF08 from Christchurch to Papeete, Tahiti. Assembly in the lobby of Hotel Commodore is at 0730; please check out and be ready to go by 0745. Power and access will start at 0800. Takeoff is at 1000. Coordinate rental car returns with Pavel and Kurt who will give us a ride back from the terminal. No customs or immigration procedures will be necessary.

Thursday Jan. 22 U.S. time (Friday Jan. 23 NZ time): Maintenance day, power and access form 1400 to 1600 with power provided as necessary on GPU. In the morning Brigitte will be departing for the hangar at 0900 to oversee shipping, so people interested in shipping their cargo can join her.

Wednesday Jan. 21 U.S. time (Thursday Jan. 22 NZ time): Maintenance day, power and access form 0800 to 1600 with power provided as necessary on GPU.

Tuesday Jan. 20 U.S. time (Wednesday Jan. 21 NZ time): Confirmed RF07 from Christchurch to 67S, aka Polar Flight. Takeoff 1000 local, with 0730 departure from the hotel, 0800 power and access. Expected flight duration 8 hours. Flight will take off, overfly Lauder with a dip over it and head south towards 175W 67S doing dips from 28,000 to 1,000 feet. At the southernmost point the aircraft will climb to max altitude (43,000 ft) and return collecting high altitude data, possibly reaching 45,000 ft or higher.

Monday Jan. 19 U.S. time (Tuesday Jan. 20 NZ time): Maintenance day, power and access as needed from 0800 to 1600. Gather at 0730 in the lobby of Hotel Commodore to carpool to the USAP hangar to start working on the GV. Plan to carry out the tasks that do not require power first (flask replacement, gas filling). Then, power will be provided as needed using a ground power unit. It is best to minimize its use; we are not sure how reliably the GPU will operate if run for many hours at a time (RAF own GPUs are specially made for this, most other are not so beware of possible power failure; it is not planned but may happen).

Sunday Jan. 18 U.S. time (Monday Jan. 19 NZ time): RF06 from Pago-Pago, Am. Samoa to Christchurch, NZ. Estimated take-off time 0900 local. ETA in Christchurch 1600 local.

Saturday Jan. 17: Hard down day. Science crew will perform flask preparation without power either from 0800 to 0930 or from 1600 to 1700 and take the rest of the day off. Aircraft will be available for visiting upon arrangement with Pavel at 0930. A visit to the NOAA observatory courtesy of Mark Cunningham will start after the tour of the GV and will take about 4.5 hours, including a 3 hour round trip. (The tour was a great success, we ended up showing the inside and outside of the GV and explaining what we are doing to over 40 people who were very interested and appreciative of the opportunity to get familiar with the project).

Friday Jan. 16: RF05 from Honolulu HI to Pago-Pago, Am. Samoa. Power and access at 0815, takeoff at 1000 Hawaii time. ETA in Pago-Pago 1700 local time. GV crew will meet at 0730 in the Hyatt lobby, checked out and ready to go to the airport.

Thursday Jan. 15: Maintenance day, power and access from 0815 till 1100 then again from 1530 till 1630, as necessary for completing the preparation for flight. People staying at Hayatt will gather in the lobby at 0730 for departure to the airport.

Wednesday Jan. 14: RF04 from Anchorage, AK to Honolulu, Hawaii, with a 0900 take-off. The snowfall has stopped for now and if the weather is totally clear we will pull out at 0645 for a normal 2 hour pre-flight starting at 0700. In case of freezing rain and snow or if it is just about to start, we plan to start instrument warm-up in the hangar at 0645. We will load up the luggage while in the hangar if we can, so please bring your bags out around 0700. At 0815 we will pull the GV out and if there is precipitation, we will immediately fuel and taxi as soon as the fueling is finished. This is the only way for us to avoid accumulating snow on the airplane, which would prevent us from taking off. The necessary instrument pre-flight would have to take place during taxi and first hour of flight, and we do understand that this can result in data loss or degradation. If there is no precipitation however, we will hold on the ramp as long as necessary (1 hour) to allow proper pre-flight procedures to be completed.

Tuesday Jan. 13: Maintenance day, power and access to the GV from 0800 to 1600 local time.

Monday Jan. 12 : RF03 from Anchorage towards the North Pole. There is a chance of snow in the morning. If there is substantial snowfall, the preflight will be split into 1.5 hours in the hangar starting at 0645, then 30-45 min on the ramp from 0830 till 0900-0915 while the aircraft is being fueled and preflight is completed. The reason for this is, if there is accumulating snow on the wings, the aircraft must be de-iced before it can fly, which is a problem for instrumentation. If there is no snowfall, there will be standard pre-flight on the ramp from 0700 to 0900 (take-off time). The decision will be made at 0630 at the FIFO.

Sunday Jan. 11: Maintenance day, power and access to the GV from 0800 to 1600 local time.

Saturday Jan. 10: Aircraft is inside the hangar at the Anchorafe FAA FIFO. Hard down day, no power or access to the GV.

Friday Jan. 9: RF02 from Billings MT to Anchorage AK. Planned t/o 1200 MST, potentially slipping to 1300 MST, estimated duration 8 hours. Power and access at 1000 MST. Repairs of main cabin door start at 0700.