WINTER is using the NSF/NCAR C-130 research aircraft, essentially a flying laboratory, to conduct research flights in the Northeast Metropolitan Corridor, the Ohio River Valley, and the Southeast regions. The C-130 originally served as a cargo plane, so it is able to carry a large payload of instruments while also having a range of more than 1500 miles and the ability to fly between 1000 – 15,000 feet in altitude. These aspects are important in order to fully characterize the atmospheric chemistry of a region, because pollutants can be far reaching as winds transport them. 

For each field project a specialized suite of instruments are uploaded to the aircraft to meet the research needs of the study. As part of WINTER, the C-130 will carry a suite of state-of-the-art instruments designed to measure a range of reactive trace gases, atmospheric fine particles, and meteorological parameters such as temperature, radiation, and winds.

>> Click images to enlarge.

Left-side Instruments and Inlets

1. Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) Hygrometer [NCAR] 2. Aerosol Collector [University of New Hampshire] 3. Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (CIMS2) [University of Washington/NOAA] 4. Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (CIMS1) [University of Washington]	5. Forward Scattering Spectrometer Probe, Model 100 (FSSP-100) [NCAR] 6. Cloud Droplet Probe (CDP) [NCAR] 7. Two-dimensional Optical Array Cloud Probe (2DC) [NCAR]

Right-side Instruments and Inlets

8. Ultra-High Sensitivity Aerosol Spectrometer (UHSAS) [NCAR] 9. Passive Cavity Aerosol Spectrometer Probe (PCASP) [NCAR]	10. HIAPER Airborne Radiation Package [Upward-looking] (HARP) [NCAR] 11. NH3 Inlet [Los Gatos Research]   12. Thermal Dissociation-Laser Induced Fluorescence (TD-LIF) [University of California, Berkeley]

Belly Instruments and Inlets

13. Time-of-Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (ToF AMS) [University of Colorado, Boulder] 14. Airborne Ring-down Nitrogen Oxide Laser Detector (ARNOLD) [NOAA]	15. HIAPER Airborne Radiation Package [Downward-looking] (HARP) [NCAR]
16. Particle into Liquid Sampler (PiLS2) [Georgia Institute of Technology] 17. In-Situ Airborne Formaldehyde (ISAF) [NASA] 18. Particle into Liquid Sampler (PiLS1) [Georgia Institute of Technology] 19. Trace Organic Gas Analyzer (TOGA) [NCAR]	20. CO/CO2 Inlet [NCAR] 21. O3, NO/NOy Inlet [NCAR] 22. Condensation Nucleus Counter (CN Counter) [NCAR] 23. Not pictured: SO2 Inlet [North Carolina Agriculture & Technical State Univeristy]