Flyby tests show atmosphere

Visitors to the UK's Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford in July saw a new visitor to the show as the FAAM BAe-146 Atmospheric Research Lab made its first-ever appearance at an air show.

Researchers last year flew into the most disruptive, violent cyclone that Scotland had seen in decades and more recently in May this year, they flew into the heart of ferocious storms battering southern England. The data they collected will help improve weather forecasts by giving scientists unprecedented knowledge about what happens in the storms' turbulent depths.

A research team also took the aircraft to the edge of the volcanic ash cloud that brought UK air traffic to a standstill in 2010. Their efforts, together with the team aboard NERC's Dornier 228, helped give the Civil Aviation Authority the information it needed to allow passenger flights to restart.

This flying laboratory is fitted with equipment that measures wind speed, temperature, humidity, the composition of particles in clouds, and other atmospheric properties. It makes research flights across the world to investigate weather, climate and the environment. Much of the research is funded by NERC and the Met Office.