At the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, work is now underway to bring on-line the High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research, or HIAPER. This new research aircraft -- a Gulfstream V (G-V) business jet -- is being built and modified to serve the environmental research needs of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the next several decades. During the opening portion of this presentation, a brief background on the HIAPER project will be given and the capabilities of the aircraft and modifications to be made to the basic airframe will be outlined and discussed.

Next, an overview of the outcome of the NSF-led HIAPER Community Instrumentation Workshop will be given. This workshop (held at NCAR from 4-6 November 2002) provided the attendees with an opportunity to discuss the types of environmental measurements that should be made with HIAPER and to exchange ideas regarding new technologies and instrumentation design approaches that can and should be applied to the development of new instrumentation for this airborne platform. A summary of workshop findings and recommendations regarding the major research areas in which measurements from this new research aircraft are most needed will be presented, and a brief discussion of possible instrumentation to be considered for deployment on HIAPER (also based on recommendations derived during the workshop) will be given.