PRESS RELEASES

28 January 1998
Senator the Hon. Ian Macdonald Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment

Aerosonde weather reconnaissance aircraft made its first operational flight yesterday, (27 January) transmitting weather conditions on the periphery of Cyclone Tiffany off NW Western Australia.

Parliamentary Secretary for the Bureau of Meteorology, Senator Ian Macdonald, said the aircraft was launched from Port Hedland at 4.30pm Western Standard Time to gather offshore data.

The three-metre wingspan aircraft powered by a 20cc engine ranged up to 136km offshore, sending continuous data transmissions of wind speed and direction, pressure, temperature and humidity, and several vertical profiles of atmospheric conditions. Selected data was relayed to the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Perth.

Potential activities include routine observations in remote locations, severe weather reconnaissance and local environmental monitoring. The Aerosonde is expected to provide a valuable export industry, with more than 30 aircraft already ordered.

The Program director, Dr Greg Holland of the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre said, "this was a good mission, the first serious attempt to fly automated weather reconnaissance under operational conditions."

"We had intended to keep it out all night, but a generator fault threatened the communications, so we brought it home at midnight for a fully automatic landing in the dark on a sandy area - an excellent test of its capacities."

"It was a good start for trials which will test 10 aircraft under operational conditions. We will fly routine missions through to March, observing coastal weather."

"We'll also tackle specific missions into coastal weather systems, including, should there be an opportunity, tropical cyclones," Dr Holland said.

The trials will give the Bureau valuable experience with Aerosonde Phase I operations and observing capacity. Bureau forecasters will define the missions and will use data for forecasting.

After three years of development, the Phase I Aerosonde can fly for more than 30 hours over a range of 2500 km, to an altitude of 5 km. The 15kg aircraft is completely autonomous, but is operated under command from a ground station.

Senator Macdonald said the Port Hedland trials have attracted considerable international interest.

"Observers from the United States, China, Japan and Taiwan will participate in operations in February. Launch and recovery is from a specially prepared runway at Cargill Salt," he said.

Once in the air, the aircraft command will pass to the Bureau's Perth Regional Forecasting Office. Aircraft will operate under radio communications within a coastal zone extending 80 km out to sea from east of Port Hedland to Point Sampson, and out to the North Rankin offshore platform.

AN INNOVATIVE ROBOT AIRCRAFT FOR ATMOSPHERIC MONITORING

11 March 1998
Senator the Hon Ian Macdonald Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment

I rise tonight to inform the Senate of an event that recently took place in the skies off the coast of Port Headland, Western Australia. This event, as I will explain, is a wonderful example of necessity being the "mother of invention"!

Though in this case it's more a matter of self preservation because until now getting important weather information from within a Cyclone was an occupation solely for the foolhardy.

It involved daring aviators flying expensive aircraft as far into the storms as they could physically go - in an attempt to gather as much data as they possibly could to help meteorologists get a better understanding of cyclones and therefore improve their ability to forecast them.

So it is with some enthusiasm that I tell you that on Tuesday the 27th of January this year, as Tropical Cyclone Tiffany was spinning her way down the Western Australian coast, a small gathering of meteorologists and technicians were preparing to launch a small robotic aircraft, called an Aerosonde, for its first data collecting flight.

By all accounts the mission was a success and so this small aircraft has confirmed its potential as a very useful, low-cost method of gathering and transmitting weather information from remote areas of Australia and its surrounding oceans.

The magnitude of this feat is most definitely of biblical proprotions in so far as this small aircraft with its thin, three metre wing and a distinctive inverted-V tail structure on twin booms seems wimpish, no match for a decent thunderstorm or cyclone, much like David and Goliath.

Consider also that it has been designed to withstand stresses up to 15 times the force of gravity which, if you compare this with a passenger airliner in flight that is designed to withstand stresses around five times the force of gravity, gives you some idea of the conditions inside one of these storms.

This first operational flight was part of a six week trial that involved eleven Aerosondes in all and which saw a range of missions take off from the Cargill Salt Works outside Port Hedland in northwest Western Australia. The locals call this Cyclone Alley--and indeed the team were fortunate enough to be able to test this aircraft during severe Tropical Cyclone Tiffany.

A significant feature of this aircraft is that while, in this case, they were launched and recovered at Port Hedland, the staff working in the Perth Regional Forecasting Centre of the Bureau of Meteorology some 1500km away were the ones at the controls. By this process, forecasters were able to make special requests for observations anywhere within the designated flight region.

But the most satisfying aspect of this innovative environmental monitoring concept is that it is being driven by Australians.

The Aerosonde is being developed by a Melbourne company, Sencon Environmental Systems, in collaboration with the Bureau of Meteorology.

The project leader, Dr Greg Holland of the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre, has been working for several years on a project to harness converging aeronautical, computing and communications technologies and develop a weather reconnaissance instrument that could economically monitor those huge areas of the southern hemisphere where direct weather observations are rare or nonexistent.

The project has been endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction and is the result of commendable international collaboration, involving both public and private sectors.

Dr Holland's major technical collaborator is Canadian engineer Tad McGeer of the Insitu Group Inc. Together they planned an airframe made of carbon fibre and kevlar tough enough to survive inhospitable weather, and powered by a 20cc engine.

Within they crammed robust, ever smaller computers; the emerging technology of the global positioning satellite system; and sophisticated communications equipment. They worked out how to enable the aircraft to fly itself under almost infinite options of flight missions.

Drawing on the expanding web of communications satellites, they learned how to command the aircraft in flight, how to transmit data continuously. And not least, how to bellyland the 15kg aircraft automatically in the nearest paddock or bit of flat ground.

Sencon Environmental Services is now assembling production aircraft in Melbourne. It has the potential to be a valuable scientific export, with more than 30 aircraft already sold to the US and Taiwan.

While the current aircraft are designed primarily for weather reconnaissance, carrying virtually the same radiosondes lifted by balloons from 37 Bureau of Meteorology stations, the Aerosonde is expected to be used in other environmental monitoring tasks; for example, carrying a small videocamera, or a wide range of chemical or other sensors, or perhaps search and rescue operations support.

Today's model will fly for 30 hours or more, up to 16 000ft if needed, all on a 20cc engine. And there's essentially no noise or environmental pollution. The recent trials included flights of 31 and 26 hours, and with eight daylight flights over seven hours.

The research team expects that by the new century the Aerosonde will be able to fly for four days or so, with a range of 7000km, and reach perhaps 45 000ft with a new turbocharged engine-- enough to fly over a cyclone, and descend into its relatively calm 'eye'.

Even with today's aircraft, a laptop computer and a mobile phone will enable a scientist in eastern Australia to command the operations of an aircraft monitoring a cold front west of Perth. Indeed, during the recent trial, a test connection via the internet enabled a scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre in Melbourne to assume operational command of an Aerosonde flying north of Port Hedland.

There has been close liaison with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority from the start of the program to ensure that Aerosondes can operate to their full potential while maintaining a high degree of safety and minimal disruptions to large aircraft operations.

The meteorological applications are numerous. As a North Queenslander with some unhappy acquaintance with tropical cyclones, I can see the immediate benefits of something which can remain in the vicinity of dangerous weather systems for days--or even penetrate storms.

For instance, forecasting cyclone landfall remains a difficult task, and anything which can capture and relay the precise numbers--the pressures, temperatures, wind speed and direction-- from these hazardous systems will make for improved forecasts and a safer community.

You can imagine other targets. Pinning down the timing and intensity of a cold front affecting firefighters. Tracking a southerly buster whipping up the NSW coast. Patrolling the data void in the Indian Ocean west of Perth.

Research, too. In late 1995, prototype Aerosondes contributed to an international atmospheric research project which studied the afternoon thunderstorms which form over the Tiwi Islands north of Darwin before the Wet season.

Following the Port Hedland operational trials, the weather squadron is to be sent off to another multinational experiment, studying the monsoon lifecycle in the South China Sea. Transport's easy--unbolt the wings and tail assembly, and they pack into special suitcases. A scientist can carry an Aerosonde as aircraft luggage.

Aerosondes are expendable, of course. They will be expected to work at times in weather conditions that menace 'big' planes--downbursts from thunderstorms, icing, turbulence, very strong winds. They also can be used to monitor severe environmental hazards, chemical spills, radiation and forest fires where humans can only proceed at considerable risk.

And their complex computing, navigation and communications package complicates the risk. But with a production cost currently below $20,000, and at least 20 missions expected from every airframe, they are a monitoring device that merits serious consideration.

I commend the lateral thinking and effort that created these tiny high-tech environmental monitors. And the elegant engineering that has provided a robot that flies by itself and currently squeezes over 500km from a litre of fuel!

COMMERCIAL TAKE-OFF OF PILOTLESS AIRCRAFT

10 May 1998
Senator the Hon Ian Macdonald Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment

A new long-range pilotless aircraft with a wingspan of only three meters and a 20cc engine called the Aerosonde took off today (Monday 11/5/98) in Canberra.

The Aerosonde is a joint development project and was officially launched today (Monday) at RAAF Fairbairn by the Parliamentary Secretary for the Bureau of Meteorology, Senator Ian Macdonald.

"The Aerosonde program will be accelerated following funding of a new joint development project that is worth in the order of $11 million of which $4.5 million would be accessible to the Bureau of Meteorology to accelerate relevant system development projects.

"The new funding arrangement of this joint project involves a licensing agreement, which ensures that the Bureau retains ownership of intellectual property and receives ongoing income from the systems commercialisation," Senator Macdonald said.

The Aerosonde has taken several years to develop and is the result of collaboration between the Bureau of Meteorology, Sencon Environmental Systems Pty Ltd a Melbourne based company and the US-based Insitu Group.

"The Bureau of Meteorology under the direction of Dr Greg Holland has been working with Sencon and Insitu and this is a wonderful example of what can be achieved when the private and public sector join together.

"The aircraft demonstrates the quality of Australian science and engineering and the world class expertise of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology in developing this very useful, low cost method of gathering and transmitting weather information.

"The aircraft promises to substantially improve the accuracy of weather forecasts and warnings by providing forecasters with detailed information from remote locations and even from the middle of a cyclone," Senator Macdonald said.

The potential activities of the Aerosonde include routine observations in remote locations, severe weather reconnaissance, lightning detection and local environmental monitoring.

"The most satisfying aspect of this innovative environmental monitoring concept is that it is being driven by Australians and encourages the development of leading-edge technologies in this country rather than offshore.

"The Aerosonde is proving to be a valuable export industry, with over 30 overseas orders already filled," Senator Macdonald said.

The project has been endorsed by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.

WEATHER AIRCRAFT FLIES INTO RECORD BOOKS

24 August 1998
Senator the Hon Ian Macdonald Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment

Senator Ian Macdonald, Parliamentary Secretary for the Bureau of Meteorology has welcomed the first successful North Atlantic crossing by the Australian designed robotic aircraft, the Aerosonde.

Senator Macdonald who officially launched the joint Aerosonde project in Canberra in May 1998 said that this trans Atlantic Flight shows the world class technological expertise that exists in Australian industry and in the Bureau of Meteorology.

"My congratulations must go to all involved, particularly Dr Greg Holland from the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne, Tad McGeer, who proposed and organised the mission, and to Juris Vagners at the University of Washington.

"The Aerosonde was the first robotic aircraft to cross the North Atlantic Ocean, the smallest aircraft to do so, and it had flight time of roughly 26 hours for the 3,200 kilometre trip (approx)," Senator Macdonald said.

The Aerosonde landed on the West Coast of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in the early hours of Saturday (22 August, Australian time) after departing from Bell Island Airport in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

The Aircraft left Bell Island, Newfoundland, on Thursday. It then moved out of radio contact and conducted a specified flight plan entirely on its own until it arrived off Benbecula.

"The attempt has not been without drama, one aircraft crashed on take-off due to a software glitch, and one aircraft was lost to Neptune somewhere in the North Atlantic.

"This transatlantic crossing caps off a good year for the Aerosonde. It has just completed a 3-year development program conducted by Environmental Systems and Services in Melbourne in partnership with the Insitu Group and the Bureau of Meteorology.

"Further developments will lead to a more robust and flexible aircraft for routine operations, with the first aircraft going into operations in 1999. This crossing follows extensive trials held in Australia, Canada and Asia over the past year. It followed a path similar to that taken by the first Atlantic manned crossing by Alcock and Brown.

"This record breaking flight was undertaken by the Insitu Group and the University of Washington with a grant from the US Office of Naval Research.

"The flights were planned to collect meteorological data and demonstrate the capacity of the aircraft to operate over all ocean basins taking observations in critical locations for weather forecasting," Senator Macdonald said.