File:Douglas DC-8 rear from down.jpg

DC-8 Airborne Laboratory in flight

Photo Number: EC98-44428-004
Photo Date: February 20, 1998

Formats: 515x480 JPEG Image (57 KBytes)
1099x1024 JPEG Image (294 KBytes)
3000x2793 JPEG Image (2,654 KBytes)

Photo
Description: The NASA DC-8 in a right bank over the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains. The former airliner is a "dash-72" model and has a range of 5,500 miles. The craft can stay airborne for 12 hours and has an operational speed range between 300 and 500 knots. The research flights are made at between 500 and 41,000 feet. The aircraft can carry up to 30,000 lbs of research/science payload equipment installed in 15 mission-definable spaces. In this photo, the aircraft is shown in flight from below, with the DC-8 silhouetted against a blue sky.

Project
Description: NASA used a DC-8 aircraft as a flying science laboratory. The platform aircraft, was based at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., collected data for many experiments in support of scientific projects serving the world scientific community. Included in this community were NASA, federal, state, academic and foreign investigators. Data gathered by the DC-8 at flight altitude and by remote sensing has been used for scientific studies in archeology, ecology, geography, hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, volcanology, atmospheric chemistry, soil science and biology.

NASA Photo by: Carla Thomas

Keywords: DC-8; science platform; oceanography; meteorology; soil science; archeology; ecology; geography; hydrology; volcanology; atmospheric chemistry; and biology

source:http://www1.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/DC-8/HTML/EC98-44428-004.html archive copy at the Wayback Machine

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