Each morning that a flight is attempted on the ER-2, the instruments have to be loaded and checked out.  This process starts 4 to 41/2 hours before the plane takes off.  This sequence of pictures is of the experimenters who have instruments mounted in the fuselage of the airplane.  Picture A is of Paul who is with the NASA AMES MMS instrument which measures pressure, temperature, and winds while the airplane is flying.  The rest of this sequence shows experimenters with the NOAA instruments.  Picture B shows Dale with the ACATS instrument.  David, with the NOy instrument, is shown in picture C.  Picture D shows Dale and Jim with ACATS, Erik with O3 and Peter with NOy.  Picture E is of Pavel with ACATS and F shows Dale and Pavel with ACATS.

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Some of the other instruments mount on the outside of the fuselage and in the wing pods.  Christoph and Arlyn with the Harvard CO2 are shown in picture A.  Picture B shows Eric, Kathy, David, Rick, and Joe from the Harvard ClONO2 group.  Karena is shown in picture C checking out the Cal Tech CIMS instrument.  MJ and Sue check out the MTP instrument from JPL in pictures D and E.  MJ is shown again in picture F along with Jeff and Jeff of the ATLAS group from NASA AMES.  Picture G is of Jeff, and picture H is of Ryan. Dave from the ALIAS group of JPL appears in pictureI.

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These missions would be impossible but for the dedication of the people who maintain and fly the airplane.  Picture A shows Bob from the Lockheed crew.  Bob, from the crew, Quincey, from NASA AMES, and Gil from the crew are shown in picture B.  Bob and Wayne, in the foreground and both from Lockheed are pictured in C, and Jim, the crew chief from Lockheed is shown in picture D.  Picture E is of Ron, the Lockheed electrician.  Observing this whole operation from above is Dee, one of the pilots, Smurf, from life support, and Mike from Dryden ER-2 management shown in picture F.  Mike is shown again in picture G as is Dee in picture H.

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As the instruments are loaded and the crew checks that the airplane is safe and flight worthy, many instrument, flight operation, and scientific discussions are going on around the plane.  Picture A shows Fred from NCAR talking to Paul and Rick from Cal Tech all who are working on the CIMS instrument.  Picture B shows Jeff and Wendy both who are from NASA AMES.  Picture C shows Sue from NCAR who works on the WAS instrument.  Picture D shows Ryan from Harvard discussing with Sue from NASA AMES management some aspects of the upcoming flight.  Rick from Cal Tech and David from NOAA are shown in picture E probably having some inlet discussion while picture F shows Chuck from the FCAS/NMASS instrument of DU talking to Paul, one of the project scientists from NASA Goddard.

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