The ARISTO 2016 campaign brings me back to Boulder area in Colorado. The great plains and the Rocky Mountains with its forests and lakes are certainly one of the most beautiful corners of US. Moreover, Boulder area is the mecca for airborne atmospheric research hosting many research institutes and several several aircraft platforms.
The purpose of the ARISTO campaign is to offer a NSF-funded platform for testing airborne instruments onboard NCAR fleet (G-5/C-130). Although the campaign is mainly designed for NSF-funded instruments (originating from the USA) also instruments that can be useful for future NSF-funded missions are accepted. This gave us the opportunity to test our PHIPS-HALO probe for the first time on an NCAR aircraft. Such platforms for purely instrument testing purposes are not available in Europe, which means that ARISTO is an unique opportunity to develop the instrument further. We head for the campaign with a new instrument software that we have been developing the last year, and I head with the enthusiasm of participating to my very-first NCAR mission. It's the same kind of enthusiasm as starting a new school at the beginning of the semester and to get the change to meet whole new faces.