Wyoming King Air as a National Facility

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This cooperative agreement continues to operate the Wyoming King air as a national facility. The King Air aircraft facility is a unique facility that provides a platform for observational science and education for the NSF supported scientific community and the geosciences community in general. The aircraft would be maintained in a flight ready condition to support NSF approved atmospheric research projects that require the capability of the twin-engine turboprop. The agreement provides base funding for the management, staffing, operation, maintenance, testing and some enhancements of the King Air aircraft and instrumentation. It covers both the scientific and technical support for planning and data reduction phases of field projects. The agreement will also include the deployment of the facility under supplemental awards from the NSF's lower atmospheric research facilities deployment pool funding. The aircraft has been operated as an NSF national facility since December 1987. The facility has flown on average about five to six field programs per year. During its lifetime (since 1977) the aircraft has flown over 3000 research flight hours, of which about 1800 have been devoted to NSF sponsored scientists. There is no current suitable replacement aircraft that could perform the same type of data collection for NSF-sponsored research.