The Meteorological Research Flight and its predecessors and successors
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Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
The Meteorological Research Flight and its
predecessors and successors
G. B. Gratton
Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements
Building 125, Cranfield University
Cranfield, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, UK
Abstract
This paper surveys the history of atmospheric research flying in Britain. The history includes
substantial use of balloons and kites before the first world war, and expanded with the wartime
need for meteorological understanding, leading to the creation of the first dedicated “Meteor
Flight” in 1918, which existed for nearly 2 years until being disbanded as part of a post war
general demobilisation. Between the wars, regular meteorological observations from aircraft
were taken, as well as the provision of crew meteorologists to the new airship services. But
airborne atmospheric research activities and the improvement of such capability were minimal
through 1941.
The creation of a new organisation attached to the Boscombe Down High Altitude Flight in
1942 re-discovered and expanded a “three-strand” pattern of atmospheric research flying which
combined instrument development, scientific understanding and enhanced aircraft capability.
This led to the creation of the Met Research Flight or MRF in 1946, which from 1946 to 2001
established and maintained a British lead in such work, and led to many fundamental
discoveries in meteorology, as well as in several distinct fields of instrument science. Other
organisations contemporary with the early period of MRF carried out similar observational
work, but lacked the three-strand approach which characterised MRF’s world leading
organisation. They had all been disbanded by 1965, superseded by automated observations and
irrelevant to research requirements.
A continued atmospheric research flying effort, built upon the MRF model, was explored
elsewhere in Britain from the mid 1980s and continues to the present day with both new and
successor organisations, the largest present successor being FAAM operating a BAe 146
aircraft.
1. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY HISTORY
The development of the two sciences of aeronautics and meteorology are necessarily
intertwined. As aircraft have become more capable they have needed increasingly high quality
data about the atmosphere in which they must operate safety, whilst in order to provide this
information, meteorologists must use aircraft to determine the characteristics of the
atmosphere, to refine their ability to produce a variety of types of forecast.
Meteorological observations from aircraft and balloons cover a spectrum from routine
observations for immediate use in producing forecasts to experimental observations that
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Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
provide data to advance the science of meteorology, but are not used for immediate forecasts.
This paper is mainly concerned with the latter type of observations, but sets these in the context
of the full range of meteorological flying.
The United Kingdom, historically a leader in both aeronautical development and in
meteorological research, has unsurprisingly also tended to take an initiative in meteorological
research flying. An early visionary was William Napier Shaw (later Sir Napier Shaw, FRS (1)),
director of the Meteorological Office, who in 1913 (2) was already carrying out experiments
using kites. In 1907 he had published papers (3) on the effects of vertical air currents and use
of kites in meteorological research, proposed that vanes could be mounted on aircraft to
measure motion of the air, and proposed that other quantities including “atmospheric
electricity” might also be measured. This was arguably impracticable with the crude
aeroplanes of the time, indeed Britain would not achieve powered manned flight until 1908,
but the rapid development of aeronautical technology during WW1 started to make this
possible.
A further and more practical pioneer was Flt.Cdr. B C Clayton of the Royal Naval Air Service
(RNAS), who in 1916-1917 produced “Records of temperature and altitude” which were
published with comments by Shaw in 1917 (4). A contemporary of his, Major W R G Atkins,
flying with the Royal Flying Corps in Egypt, was taking similar readings which were published
in 1918 (5). Through the middle and later part of the war, despite early resistance, most British
military units had access to a meteorologist; The Royal Flying Corps had introduced
meteorological training for pilots in 1913 at Upavon (6). In particular, the use of poison gas had
substantially concentrated the army’s mind on knowing from which direction the wind was
blowing. By 1918, the British armed services were releasing 13,000 balloons per month in
order to determine wind strength and direction.
Particularly following the earlier work of fighter pilot turned eminent meteorologist
C K M Douglas, a further and similarly minded contemporary (7, 8, 9) of Clayton and Atkins, the
Royal Flying Corps Meteor Flight was established about February 1918 at Berck (later known
as Berck-sur-Mer) in France for weather research flights (10, 11). This consisted of two pilots
and four groundcrew, operating two Armstrong Whitworth FK8 aeroplanes (Figure 1), later
replaced after several accidents with two de Havilland dH.9s. The aircraft were fitted with
psychrometers (combined dry and wet bulb thermometer devices that provided relative
humidity) and paper trace recording RAF barothermographs. From March 1918 cloud
photographs were also being taken, with a “photographer” (actually a photographic technician)
attached to the flight to process these. With the formation of the Royal Air Force from the
RFC and RNAS it became the “RAF Meteorological Flight”, but otherwise continued its work
as originally established, and Douglas himself took command in May 1918.
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Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
Figure 1 Armstrong Whitworth FK8
(Expired Crown Copyright)
After a last instrumented ascent on 31 March 1919 this was partially disbanded at the
beginning of April 1919, moving to Bickendorf near Cologne where flights recommencing on
10 June. In July the dH9s were replaced by a third type, the Bristol fighter. The flight
however was permanently disbanded in September following a last flight on 28 August 1919,
as part of the general post-war demobilisation, but not before it had obtained substantial
temperature and humidity data up to 14,000 ft. It is certainly this short-lived unit that built on
pre-war foundations of kite and balloon observations, and wartime balloon observations, to
first formally and rigorously fly instrumentation on board a powered aeroplane in support of
meteorological research. Douglas himself transferred to the Meteorological Office where he
later became regarded as his generation’s pre-eminent forecaster.
Figure 2 Meteor Flight’s “logo”, as displayed on their aircraft
(From reference 10)
By the end of WW1 then, meteorology was developing the form of a science, and the taking of
measurements in aircraft was, whilst in its infancy, both established and published (12). In 1919
for example, there was a meteorologist in the crew of the first flight of the R34 Airship across
the Atlantic – Lt. Guy Harris (6). It is known that there were observations made by, and
forecasts issued to, pilots of the new airborne mail services, but historical records in this regard
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Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
are poor. In the same year, the Meteorological Office became part of the newly formed Air
Ministry.
Two further, short-lived met flights are known to have been formed, at Baldonnel (southwest
of Dublin) and Upavon in the early 1920s, but their impact was small.
A new start occurred in 1924 when a Meteorological Flight was formed within the Royal Air
Force, initially at Eastchurch then moving to Duxford in 1925. This operated for most of its
history with Siskin IIIa aircraft which appear to have been on the strength of the unit until
1936, occasionally supplemented by Gloster Gauntlets and Gladiators. The flight suffered one
fatal accident (a mid-air collision killing Met Flight pilot Flt.Sgt. Cecil Tostevin in December
1928 (13)). In 1936 the unit was moved to RAF Mildenhall. Little published research exists
from the work of this unit, but given that it existed for about 12 years, presumably at the time it
was considered to have considerable value to the RAF and the meteorological office. A similar
unit was also established at RAF Aldergrove in 1936, equipped initially with Bristol Bulldogs,
which were replaced early in 1937 with Gloster Gauntlets. All of these were arguably obsolete
aircraft when in Met Flight use – a pattern that typifies much of the history of meteorological
flying.
The most notable pilot of the flight was Flying Officer Jeffrey Quill, later Chief Test Pilot of
Supermarine, who joined the flight in 1933 and became its commander in 1934 – receiving the
Air Force Cross in recognition of achieving a 100% flight record for twice daily meteorological
ascents to 25,000 ft through a 13 month period ending in December 1935 (14). This was his last
RAF position, as he left the service to become deputy Chief Test Pilot at Vickers Supermarine
in January 1936. Quill describes flights measuring humidity at 50mb (~1400 ft) intervals using
a psychrometer mounted on a wing strut, very similarly to that flown by Meteor Flight in
1918/19, and a large accurate altimeter calibrated in millibars (now known as hectoPascals).
He also describes that:
The RAF in those days was very far from being an all-weather air force. In the Met
Flight we developed our own all-weather techniques and very effectively in the
circumstances.
Many of these techniques seem to have spread informally through the RAF, and became a
standard currency in aircraft operations – including contacting and obtaining meteorological
information from potential diversion airfields, use of controlled descents over low terrain to
make cloudbreaks, and accurate flying in cloud using only airspeed, altitude, a slip-ball and
turn needle and no horizon reference (which would now be known as “partial panel” but at that
time reflected the total instrumentation available in these open cockpit biplanes). Whilst Met
Flight were not alone in trying to develop such techniques, since in particular CFS (Central
Flying School) at Upavon were also doing so, it is likely that this small unit made advances
that were of significant value to the RAF in the coming conflict. Their operations were also
marked by a continued determination to obtain meteorological data at all costs. This is typified
by the following account from Quill concerning an occasion where he destroyed a Siskin
crashing in a field whilst attempting to make a cloud break in zero-ceiling conditions.
86Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
I found that I had crashed quite close to a country lane and there was a small house
nearby which had a telephone. I dictated the met figures to the Air Ministry and then
rang up Duxford informing them of the accident and requesting a crash party.
In long retrospect, it is regrettable that this work did not engage with true scientific research in
the way that the earlier Meteor flight, and certainly some later organisations did. It is also
perhaps surprising given that the same station had other aircraft allocate to aeronautical
research on behalf of the nearby University of Cambridge. But nonetheless it appears to have
had significant informal impact, in assisting effective forecasting at this formative period, in
developing techniques for all-weather flying, and not least in providing a training ground for an
exceptional pilot who would go on to heavily influence the development of the Spitfire.
Also in 1925, the Meteorological Office formed an Airship Division (6), located at Cardington
(where the Met Office still maintains an observation facility); this was a unit with a research
role that appeared aimed at serving the new airship industry and community rather than using
airships for airborne observations. Nonetheless, meteorologists flew, as is illustrated by the
death of Mr M A Giblett, head of that division, in the loss of the R101 airship where he was the
constituted “Meteorological Officer”. This may have contributed to the Meteorological
Office’s decision to close the unit in 1931, but the importance of meteorological data to airship
operations is made very clear in the official report into that disaster (15).
At least 19 semi-independent met flights, similar to those which had existed pre-WW2 at
Duxford and Aldergrove, were created through the course of that war to obtain data for
forecasts to support operations. These used a very wide variety of aircraft types, presumably
based upon local support and availability. For example, a Mosquito equipped No. 1409 Met
Flight, which may in part have been a predecessor to THUM (Temperature and HUMidity; see
section 3.2 below) was brought into being in 1941 within RAF Coastal Command, then
transferred in 1943 to Bomber Command.
A similar unit, also equipped with Mosquitos was created in a similar role of providing
meteorological reconnaissance ahead of bomber raids was formed within the USAAF 8th Air
Force in the summer of 1944, with their crews having initially been trained by the RAF (16).
This unit in particular tended to fly at night, using techniques developed by one or more of the
RAF Met Flights, such as dropping flares to establish cloud levels. The day-flying RAF units
in particular seem to have combined their meteorological role with one of more conventional
reconnaissance. These units on the British mainland were all disbanded by mid 1946. This
was partly due to the advent of cheaper fixed-base peacetime weather stations, but presumably
also Air Ministry and Meteorological Office senior management took the view that a single
centralised MRF at Farnborough, plus 202 squadron at Aldergrove, were between them a
cheaper and more effective resource than multiple small units scattered across RAF and RN,
mostly without competent scientific support. Elsewhere in the empire, flights continued into
the early 1950s performing meteorological reconnaissance.
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2. THE CREATION OF MRF
2.1 Initial establishment within HAF
In 1942 Mr A Brewer (who became Doctor and then Professor Alan Brewer after the war), was
appointed to form a new unit at the Aeroplane and Armaments Experimental Establishment at
Boscombe Down. This was to be attached to the existing High Altitude Flight (one of three
HAFs formed, the others being at Northolt, followed by one in 1943 at Bari in Italy). Dr.
Brewer was a Meteorological Office forecaster who had received an MSc in physics at
University College London in 1937; his unit initially consisted of himself, a sergeant
instrument maker and the use of two Hudson and one Spitfire aircraft (17) (see Appendix A
Tables 1 and 2). The initial objectives were closely associated with the high altitude flight
problems already being investigated at HAF, which was the prediction and prevention of the
creation of visible contrails by high altitude bombers and reconnaissance aircraft operating
over mainland Europe – a major interest of the allied powers at that time (18).
Under Brewer, the initial problems associated with understanding contrail formation proved
not to be those of meteorology, but of metrology – in other words of obtaining accurate
airborne instrument readings. Work on hygrometry had been started by G M B Dobson (10),
who previously as a serving army officer had worked from RFC Upavon in 1916 where he had
designed and flown the first airborne barothermograph (the “RAF barothermograph”, built at
RAE Farnborough). But Brewer himself took the lead in the development of airborne
thermometers which unlike existing laboratory models would not be affected by substantial
variations in solar radiation as the aeroplane manoeuvred and entered or left cloud. This
problem was solveable, but proved also to apply to the hygrometer:
In the first place Dobson supplied a hygrometer which he had shown to work in the lab
under a wide range of temperatures. However, in the aircraft it suffered from the fact
that the light changes as the aircraft passes through cloud and turns etc. So, for aircraft
use it was clear that we needed a proper illumination system. We therefore further
developed the frost point hygrometer. The object is to watch for deposition of dew or
frost on a surface that is ventilated by outside air. It is cooled by pumping a coolant
from below. The temperature is measured by a resistance thermometer. The viewing
surface is at a focus of an elliptical glass lens, with a lamp at the other focus for
illumination. You watch for deposition on the surface through a good magnifying glass.
Alan Brewer (17)
The initial use of a Boston aircraft allowed flight to 30,000 ft with developing thermometry
and hygrometry instruments, and this work expanded further by the use of a Flying Fortress,
reported to have been one of six aircraft that were a personal present from Roosevelt to
Churchill, but more significantly able to climb (stripped down to a lightweight airframe) to
37,000 ft, putting instruments consistently into the stratosphere for the first time. The lower
temperatures at these altitudes also meant that hygrometers could no longer be cooled with dry
ice, and liquid oxygen started to be used.
The use of the Fortress was relatively shortlived and replaced with the first of several Mosquito
aircraft. These proved highly successful, popular with the scientists (due to good performance
and accommodation), and led to the first rigorous investigation of the characteristics of the
tropopause (the transition between the troposphere and lower stratosphere). This led to the
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discovery, now generally attributed to Brewer, of the extremely low levels of water in the
stratosphere (19).
With the growing maturity of this unit attached to HAF, there was an increasing separation of
the areas of scientific investigations, albeit with a continuous core of instrument development
and calibration work. Instrument development has proven to be at the core of all
meteorological research flying before and since the time of Brewer’s unit. The main divisions
of instrumentation owe their roots to that time and have not changed substantially since. These
are:-
Thermometry: The measurement of temperature is fundamental to all airborne science: for
example to determine humidity, energy changes within changes of water phase, or to determine
lapse rates with altitude in various conditions. Earliest temperature measurements used
conventional mercury or alcohol thermometers, but these in particular only give mean
temperatures, with little fine resolution. Further, aircraft mounted thermometers must not be
influenced by changes in ambient solar radiation as the aeroplane manoeuvres or changes its
proximity to cloud. The vortex thermometer proved to be the best instrument during this early
period (20, 21).
Hygrometry: At first hygrometry was a close relative of thermometry with the use of dry and
wet bulb thermometers. This however ceases to have value below the freezing point of water
so around 1942/43 the Dobson-Brewer frost-point Hygrometer (22), which first flew in a
Fortress on 22 December 1943, was developed. It used a cooled surface “thimble” whose
temperature can be accurately measured, thus allowing the frost point of the air to be accurately
determined by observing the frosting of the surface of the thimble. This remained the preferred
instrument until replaced by more advanced instruments in the 1960s. Early concentration on
this was dictated in large part by the interest in contrails, but led later to very profound
discoveries of stratospheric dryness and global atmospheric circulation (19).
Wind measurement: Accurate measurement of wind is clearly at the root of meteorological
forecasting, and was also fundamental to the earliest intentions of met research flying during
WW1 where artillery trajectory prediction and the direction of movement of poison gas were
important military needs. During and immediately following WW1 early attempts were made
by having an aircraft fly along the smoke puffs cause by exploding anti-aircraft shells, a
process described dispassionately in contemporary papers, but which must have been
somewhat disconcerting for the pilot. Ultimately accurate determination of wind from an
aircraft is dependent upon good knowledge of the aircraft’s speed and heading within an air
mass, and then very accurate navigational knowledge. With the technology of the 1940s
neither were trivial problems to solve.
Vertical current and turbulence measurement: It was appreciated during this early period
that turbulence measurement would be important in order to influence aircraft structural
design, and that vertical current measurement was important in understanding the structure and
development of clouds. However, beyond empirical estimates of turbulence, and measurement
of altimeter parameters on the aeroplane, instrument technology had not yet developed
effective means of measurement, although early use of hot-wire anemometers was showing
promising initial results.
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Cloud Physics: Originating as a sub-field within the work of MRF, cloud physics has become
a subject in its own right. Whilst replaced much later by more complex instruments, the 1940s
state of the art involved capturing cloud particles on slides coated in oil, soot or magnesium
oxide, exposed by a device that allowed exposure to the passing airflow for a few hundredths
of a second. Rain droplets were also of interest, using similar techniques and also a rotating
drum device where droplets impacted a sheet of aluminium foil backed by gauze. Ice crystals
provided another area of interest, and as early as 1943 images were successfully taken of ice
crystals in the stratosphere, usually using remaining images in either an evaporating solvent
such as chloroform, or on sooted gauze. This also included the determination of the
characteristics of core cloud nuclei, which might be either solid matter or frozen water.
Chemistry: One might suppose that interest in atmospheric chemistry would be relatively
recent since the recent interests in climatology and greenhouse effects. In fact, HAF was flying
instrumentation to measure carbon dioxide (CO2) and helium (He) during WW2, and an ozone
(O3) instrument shortly after the war. Along with data from hygrometers these led to Brewer’s
proposal of global circulation in 1949.
2.2 Subsequent post war independence and development
With the end of WW2, interest in contrails was diminishing whilst development of the
technology of high altitude flight was becoming merged into the broader issues associated with
development of the new generation of jet aeroplanes. So the need for separate RAF High
Altitude Flights had ceased. However, the importance of meteorological research was
increasing, driven by the need for improved weather forecasts for a post war global economy
built upon shipping and commercial aviation, and a less happy interest in the spread of nuclear
fallout with the beginning of the cold war. So in 1946 a new and independent Meteorological
Research Flight was formed at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), Farnborough. The
scientific staff was more permanent and complete than the “bolt-on” to Boscombe Down’s
HAF, and the flight was supplied with two Mosquito and two Halifax aircraft (replaced in 1950
by two Hastings aircraft, see Appendix A Table 1), as well as a small permanent unit of RAF
aircrew to operate them.
The structure of MRF was typical of other flying organisations based at RAE at that time, with
a pivotal Flight Liaison Officer (FLO) acting as a point of contact between the RAF operator
on one side, and the scientific taskers on the other. This role, albeit later renamed as the
Aircraft Manager (AIRMAN), continued to the end of both MRF and the RAE and was a
critical and highly regarded role normally held by a civilian; in the modern equivalent
organisation, FAAM, it is split between the Operations and Technical Managers. Similarly, the
division between aircraft operations by military aircrew and the scientific management
primarily by civilians, continued until the end of military flying operations at Farnborough, and
continues to this day at Boscombe Down.
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Significant new science was done during this period. Under Assistant Directors* Frith and
then Murgatroyd (Appendix A Table 5), the use of atmospheric tracers was evaluated – using
distinctive characteristics of an air mass such as ozone or water concentrations (ozone
instruments first flown in the early 1950s) to track the changing behaviour of that mass. This
for example allowed some detailed characterisation of the jet streams.
Flying rates during this period were variable; the aeroplanes were sometimes old and always of
their time, so significant periods of downtime was inevitable with various unserviceabilities.
The Mosquitos appear to have been the most reliable aeroplanes, sometimes achieving nearly
50 hours in a month.
2.3 Investigations into making weather
The concept of cloud seeding to modify weather behaviour was first mooted by American
scientist V J Schaefer in 1946 (23), and numerous organisations worldwide tried to explore this,
which included MRF between 1950 and 1955 using one of its Hastings aircraft (24, 25). The
process generally involved releasing a powdered salt such as silver iodide, or powdered dry ice
within a cloud to provide artificial cloud nuclei upon which rain could form.
It was however concluded that:
The practical value of these experiments is however limited. In favourable conditions,
areas of perhaps 10 to 15 square miles in a cloud 2,000 feet thick may be cleared by
using about 100 lb. of dry ice. However the whole process takes between 40 minutes
and an hour, and during that time the seeded area may drift 20 or 30 miles, so that any
operational work based on it would be difficult to plan. Moreover, the occasions when
these experiments can be carried out in the United Kingdom are few. In Southern
England large areas of supercooled stratocumulus usually only occur during the winter
months during periods of easterly winds (26).
Thus it would appear that MRF was amongst the first organisations to attempt experimental
cloud seeding using aircraft – within 4 years of Schaefer’s initial proposal, and was also
amongst the first also to abandon this direction. Subsequent revisitations of cloud seeding with
variably success appear to bear out that judgement. However, it must have supported the
growing understanding of the significance of cloud nuclei in airborne meteorological research
that continues to the present day.
2.4 The mature, multi-aircraft period: 1950s to 1970s
By 1951 MRF was established in what proved a very stable form. For most of that time the
flight operated with three aircraft types: the versatile Mosquito (replaced in the mid 1950s by
the larger and equally versatile Varsity), the high performance and high altitude Canberra, and
* Assistant Director, or “A/D” was the grade for many years in the British civil service for
functional department heads, also referred to as Grade 6 or Grade 5. The term “superintendent”
was also sometimes used, but this could also be applied to other grades in some circumstances.
91Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
the large workhorse Hastings (Figure 3). Whilst there were several changes of airframe and
one non-fatal aircraft loss (Canberra WJ582 in 1962, see Appendix A Table 6), this
combination was stable and effective for the purposes of the flight. As a unit it became firmly
bedded into the main Meteorological Office organisation and it became routine for scientists to
rotate between positions in MRF and elsewhere in the organisation. The post war
Meteorological Office was working in particular to develop and improve its forecasting
models, and also in this early part of the cold war, models for predicting the spread of
radioactive fallout.
Figure 3 Met Research Flight Hastings, probably TG618 (Met Office)
A major development of this period in airborne science was in the measurement of radiative
transfer. Estimation of the energy absorbed, transmitted or reflected by levels of the
atmosphere and by the surface is fundamental to any attempt to model the atmosphere. So,
from the late 1950s infra-red instrumentation was being developed and mounted to a Mosquito
PR Mk 34 aircraft at MRF (27). This concentration on radiative transfer / flux, with ever more
specialised airborne radiometers, continued throughout the future of MRF, and indeed
continues now with FAAM (Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements). It was MRF
who first flew a radiometer, initially on behalf of the University of Cambridge, initiating an
entire field of observational science (although ground based radiometers had existed for some
time, none were until then capable of being flown). Amongst other discoveries, MRF was the
first to identify the absorption of solar radiation by aerosol in apparently clear air, particularly
downwind of urban areas – a fundamental advance in weather prediction.
Cloud physics work expanded substantially from 1965 when the Meteorological Office
appointed Professor BJ Mason to become its new Director General. Prof. Mason brought with
him a large part of his cloud physics group from Imperial College, which became the largest
single user of MRF.
In the early 1970s the two main workhorses of the MRF fleet, the Varsity and the Hastings,
were coming towards the end of their service lives, whilst there was a need for a highly capable
airframe that could allow participation in the coming international GATE (Global Atlantic
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Tropical Experiment) campaign (2). This very large campaign (with 13 aircraft and 40 ships
from 10 countries, it was and probably still is the largest such campaign ever undertaken)
would be the first major multi-platform international campaign that MRF would participate in.
It was correctly perceived that this would be a future and important pattern. So a Hercules C
Mk 1 was procured, substantially modified into a one-off “Hercules W Mk 2” standard and
added to the fleet, nominally replacing Varsity WH428, but providing MRF with its most
capable low to medium level platform to date. This aircraft, XV208, with several external and
very visible modifications, was considered by many to resemble a famous cartoon character so
became rapidly and universally known by the nickname “Snoopy”.
A further and significant change was the engagement with the Central Electricity Research
Laboratories (CERL), who started in the 1970s to use MRF facilities to research atmospheric
chemistry and brought in appropriate expertise. That work, primarily in the Hercules,
continued to the end of MRF’s existence. It continued at FAAM, carried on solely by the
university community (2), as the Meteorological Office itself abandoned chemistry research
around that time. It was found necessary to split this work between using vacuum bottles or
bags to obtain airborne samples and using continuously reading onboard chemistry
instruments. This combination of instruments, new at the time, continued to be applied later in
other British and overseas aircraft. Universities both in the UK and overseas also became
increasingly engaged with the provision and use of these instruments, which was part of the
growing and pivotal role MRF played in British and international atmospheric science.
The introduction of inertial navigation systems in the early 1960s, coupled to external airspeed
measurements, to characterise turbulence was another innovation which can now be found on
almost any atmospheric research aircraft worldwide – although now GPS would be more likely
to be used. This was pioneered on the Canberra and then on the Hercules.
Cloud physics work, pioneered from the late 1940s, was massively enhanced by the use of
American optical sensing techniques from the 1970s, which could then generate high rate data
that the new onboard computer (see below) was able to record continuously. This was, whilst
perhaps not the first, one of the world’s first airborne uses of laser technology.
Radiative transfer work also continued, with continuous improvement and miniaturisation of
instruments and an increasing appreciation within the forecasting community of the importance
of understanding this within their forecast models. This was also reflected by the incorporation
of such instruments on satellites – and such instruments needed testing. The MRF Canberra
was, for example, used to test the new Selective Chopper Radiometer (SCR) before it was
launched in 1973 on NASA’s new Nimbus-5 satellite. It was clearly very unusual that NASA
would go to another country for such testing, although this was in large part because of
collaborative work with the University of Oxford by both parties and the prototype SCR was
later moved to the Hercules and developed as an Oxford / MRF instrument known as the Multi
Channel Radiometer – MCR. Further such instruments were also developed and became part
of the standard aircraft equipment, including pyranometers (solar radiometers) and
pyrgeometers (terrestrial radiometers). Other satellite instruments would later be tested on the
Canberra and Hercules, as well as these aircraft being used for calibration of instruments
actually being flown in space (known as “ground truth measurements”).
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At the start of this period, most data was recorded manually, or occasionally with crude paper
trace or similar devices. However, increasing availability of computer technology allowed
automated data logging. Similar progression was going on elsewhere, particularly with the
research aircraft fleet co-located at RAE Farnborough. So for GATE in 1974, MRF’s first
onboard computer and magnetic tape recorder were installed within a soundproofed cabin (“the
van”) in the centre of the aircraft. Ground based computing power was used for data analysis –
initially by RAE, but by about 1980 entirely in-house.
2.5 The latter single aircraft period: 1981 to 2001
Although at no point in the history of meteorological flying has any aircraft only been taking a
single measurement, prior to the creation of MRF in 1946 aeroplanes were configured for a
relatively narrow set of measurements. In MRF’s multiple aircraft period any aircraft was
configured with a limited set of instruments for a defined experiment. However, with the use
of Snoopy, a new paradigm had to be found – that of an aeroplane which could be serve as
wide as possible a range of science needs with minimal reconfiguration. Figure 4 illustrates
the progression in 30 years from a relatively roomy “lab-bench” arrangement in one of MRF’s
Hastings to a much more complex racked arrangement in the Hercules. To a large extent this
only became possible with developing miniaturisation of electronics. The original radiometer
installation on the Mosquito for example took up much of the aeroplane, whilst on the Hercules
it was both proportionally, and actually, far smaller and lighter. And so, a true multi-purpose
meteorological research aeroplane became feasible.
By 1981 MRF was the globally pre-eminent airborne atmospheric science facility, being flown
worldwide, and very much in demand for numerous international campaigns. So there was
every reason of both scientific advancement and national prestige to maintain and continuously
improve this facility.
Figure 4 Illustration of two MRF aircraft interiors: Hastings circa 1955 (left)
and Hercules circa 1985 (right). (Met Office)
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It is also true that the retirement of the Canberra in 1981, leaving MRF with only the Hercules
which had replaced the older Varsity and Hastings, was in large part for budgetary reasons, and
left a substantial gap. The Hercules had an operational ceiling of around 25,000 ft compared to
around double that with the Canberra. So, stratospheric science in the UK from aircraft
observations was no longer possible. However, the Hercules was nonetheless an extremely
capable platform which by comparison to any previous aircraft had a large payload, long range
and long endurance. So the opportunity existed and was taken to create a world leading multi-
purpose atmospheric research platform in XV208 (Figure 5).
Figure 5 Hercules W2 “Snoopy” XV208
(Met Office)
Snoopy’s military function was revisited in March 1991, immediately following the first Gulf
War, when the departing Iraqi invaders left numerous oil wells burning in Kuwait. The aircraft
operated by an MRF team was deployed to the region to track chemical tracers in the resultant
fumes, allowing Meteorological Office model predictions that the effect would be locally
severe but insignificant further afield to be validated. This was some months faster than any
other country was able to do so, and most likely was possible because the single organisation
contained both instrumentation and aircraft teams, which characterised most of the history of
British atmospheric research flying.
In 1991 the MoD had announced that military flying would end at Farnborough in 1995. So in
March 1994, XV208 was relocated to Boscombe Down, where HAF had been until 48 years
earlier with MRF’s predecessor organisation under Alan Brewer. MRF’s main organisation
remained at Farnborough and Bracknell. Nonetheless, the work of the aircraft and the team
continued with typical 6-8 annual detachments, covering every part of the world except for
Antarctica which to-date has eluded all but some very specialist modified aeroplanes.
95Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
Figure 6 Met Research Flight Crest, designed and approved 1992
(Met Office)
2.6 The end of MRF
During the 1990s, an expensive MRF was becoming vulnerable to budget cuts, and the team
at and around the aircraft felt very insecure about their and the facility’s future. Also, the
aeroplane itself, whilst still a world leading facility, was becoming increasingly difficult to
maintain and improve.
In the meantime, NERC, the Natural Environment Research Council, which has since 1965
been the UK’s major funder of university based research in the natural sciences, had taken
an increasing interest in the role of MRF, appointing an Aircraft Officer to the flight in
1993. So, a decision was made that in 2001 XV208 would be retired and MRF would be
disbanded. However, this was not an end so much as a reconstruction. The Met Office
(renamed from the old name of the Meteorological Office in 2000) and NERC agreed that
they wished to replace the aircraft and organisation with a civil aeroplane to be managed by
a new “Joint Facility”. This was to become FAAM, described in section 4.1 below.
This roughly coincided with the creation of a new purpose-built Met Office headquarters in
Exeter, so that apart from a small number of staff involved in the creation of the new joint
facility, most of the MRF scientific staff moved to the Observation Based Research
department at Exeter, whilst the aircrew went back into the main Royal Air Force.
2.7 What Snoopy did next
Following the retirement from meteorological use, XV208 did not have value to the RAF
directly, but did have potential as a test bed for future aeronautical development. It was
acquired by Marshall Aerospace (28), who had originally converted the airframe to
meteorological use in the early 1970s and thus had an excellent corporate knowledge of the
individual airframe. The airframe since about 2006 has been in use from Cambridge airport as
a test platform for the Europrop International TP400-D6 engine that is now in the A400M
military transport. Some existing meteorology instrumentation was transferred to G-LUXE,
the new BAe 146-301 operated by FAAM, including the “HORACE” data recording system,
filters and some radiometers. But the majority was not, as the creation of the new aircraft was
taken as a long overdue opportunity to update much of the ageing MRF equipment. The
96Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
famous “snoopy” nose-boom (Figure 5) went to the Met Office’s new headquarters in Exeter
where it formed a commemorative centrepiece in the central atrium.
This illustrates the value of long familiarity with equipment in several ways. Marshall
Aerospace was familiar with the airframe, which allowed it to continue to serve aeronautical
research. The MRF staff transferring to either FAAM or the main Met Office had strong
familiarity with the scientific equipment on board the aircraft, and with the general task of
implementing such equipment, that allowed the adaptation of G-LUXE to be achieved to an
acceptable budget and timescale. The wisdom of not allowing that knowledge base to be
dispersed cannot be overstated.
This illustrates a very important point that underlies the entire history, prehistory and
succession from MRF – the continuity of knowledgeable people throughout the programme
history has allowed scientific and technological achievements that could not have been
accomplished through discrete and unconnected programmes, however good the
documentation was at each stage.
3. OTHER PLAYERS
Given the increasingly large and competent HAF/MRF both during and after WW2, one might
reasonably have assumed that this comprised the entire UK weather forecasting flight-effort.
This however was far from true. Indeed there were critical high risk weather observation tasks
flown with substantial fatalities by other units, which are difficult to numerate for the wartime
period, but included 34 lives and 6 aircraft lost during the ten years immediately following the
war. That these losses were accepted without a cessation of this flying, which is described
further below, can only emphasise the high importance allocated to obtaining airborne
meteorological data.
The following sections detail the main two such organisations in Britain, which appear to have
used MRF developed instrumentation, but perhaps surprisingly there seems to have been
relatively little interaction between them. It is hard now to understand why this interaction did
not take place; the most likely explanation is that meteorological research and meteorological
reconnaissance (the first being data acquisition to support research activities, and the second to
support production of immediate forecasting activities) were considered so different as to have
no crossover.
3.1 202 Squadron and the met reconnaissance aircraft
In a number of cases specific aircraft variants were created to meet the requirements of the
wartime and to a lesser extent post-war met flights. The most significant was probably the six
Hastings Met 1 aircraft (modified late production Hastings C Mk 1s) flown by RAF No.202
squadron, which operated from RAF Aldergrove between 1946 and 1964, initially with Halifax
Met Mk 6 aircraft, then the newer Hastings from 1950. These flights appear to have been
hazardous: 202 squadron lost 32 aircrew during the Halifax period, although none during the
97Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
Hastings period. These flights were in support of routine forecasting, with routes dictated daily
by the Meteorological Office directly.
Crews at 202 squadron were large and multi-functional, not dissimilar to the latter days of
MRF and the present day at FAAM. A typical Halifax crew of 7 would comprise 2 pilots, 2
met observers, a navigator, a flight engineer and a signaller. For the later Hastings operations a
further signaller was added and the met observers became known as “AMOs” or Airborne Met
Observers, the senior AMO occupying the right hand pilots seat – a role that at MRF in the
Hercules and later FAAM would be known as the Mission Scientist, or MS1.
The 202 squadron aircraft were fitted with the Dobson-Brewer frost point hygrometer that had
also become a fundamental instrument of MRF, and accurate low level flying was facilitated
by early radio altimeters (29).
3.2 THUM Flights (Post War)
It appears that that in addition to 202 squadron and MRF, there was also a requirement for
daily higher altitude data (directed by a continuous forecasting requirement, rather than the
more research programme directed flying of MRF). This was served by the creation in April
1951 of a contracted organisation based initially at RAF Hooton Park near Liverpool (now
Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port factory), which moved in July 1951 to RAF Woodvale near
Southport, called THUM - Temperature and HUMidity (30). THUM flight was formed
alongside No.19 reserve flying school and used Spitfire PR19 aircraft flown by civilian
contractor pilots.
These Spitfires (see Appendix A Table 5) were equipped with a relatively old-fashioned
balanced bridge psychrometer (measuring humidity, a more basic instrument than the MRF and
202 squadron equipment), an aneroid barometer, and of course a human pilot who was
expected to make empirical weather observations during daily climbs to the 300mb level
(equating to around 30,000 ft in a standard atmosphere). These climbs were carried out each
morning, aiming to reach 30,000 ft at 0900Z, almost without interruption from 28 April 1951
to 1958. Despite the peacetime scientific role of these flights, they clearly caused a very high
workload and in the first 3 years of THUM flight’s existence, it suffered two fatal accidents:
Mr Gordon Hargreaves (F/O RAFVR) was killed in a landing accident at Woodvale on 4 May
1952, and on 4 March 1954 Mr T V “Tommy” Heyes DFC (Flt.Lt. RAFVR) was killed on his
427th met flight trying to execute a forced landing with a rough running engine near
Shrewsbury.
With the ageing of the Spitfires, the Mosquito was selected as a replacement in 1956, with
aircraft delivered in 1957. THUM Flight as a unit however was disbanded in 1958 with the
appreciation of the lower risk and cost of automatic weather recording, and the far greater
research capability that existed with the multi-crew instrumented aeroplanes at MRF.
Disbandment events appear to have been regarded as significant, attended amongst others by
the Director General of the meteorological office and Air Officer Commanding 64 Group RAF.
An MBE and the LG Groves Memorial Prize (for services to the Meteorological Office) were
awarded to the last commanding officer, Mr John Formby.
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However, a postscript to this is that three aircraft of THUM: PM631, PS915 and PS853 (the
latter now owned by Rolls-Royce), maintained in service condition for some years after WW2,
formed the core of the newly formed RAF Historic Aircraft Flight, which is now the Battle of
Britain Memorial flight (Figure 7). A non-meteorological result of post war meteorological
flying, but a significant one to aviation historians.
Figure 7 PS915, THUMS Spitfire PR Mk 19 now with the Battle of Britain Memorial
Flight (Crown Copyright)
4. SUCCESSORS TO MRF
4.1 FAAM (Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements)
The task of creating the new NERC / Met Office Joint Facility at first was vested in UMIST,
the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology (now absorbed into the
University of Manchester) who managed a tender process. This was won by BAe Regional
Aircraft who tendered to provide an aircraft based upon G-LUXE, which been G-SSSH, the
BAe 146-100 and later -300 prototype airframe, but with substantial upgrading and
modification. This aircraft was finally delivered in 2004 to the new joint organisation, which
had been named FAAM, the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements. FAAM
employed (and still employs in several senior roles) a number of former MRF personnel, as
well as an active engagement with numerous scientists who had worked at or with the former
flight, based then at either the Met Office, or within various university departments. The
aircraft, the UK’s BAe 146-301 Atmospheric Research Aircraft (Figure 8), has shown a
substantial ability to meet scientific needs with excellent reliability and up to a 4 tonne
instrument load, although with its relatively low service ceiling of 35,000 ft the UK remains
without a high altitude research aircraft capability. At the time of writing this may be obtained
in the near future through access to the unmanned NASA Global Hawk aircraft (31). The BAe
146-301’s lack of the 10+ hours endurance capability of the Hercules was often commented
upon by scientists who had worked with both.
99Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
Figure 8 BAe-146-301 Atmospheric Research Aircraft (ARA) G-LUXE (FAAM)
4.3 MOCCA (Met Office Civil Contingency Aircraft)
One of the major national emergencies suffered by British aviation was the contamination of
European airspace by the volcanic efflux from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in the spring of
2010. Britain led the European response to that emergency, and the use of research aircraft
was at the core of that response. NERC’s ARSF (Airborne Research and Survey Facility)
Dornier 228 aircraft (32), more normally used for surveying work, initially led this in
collaboration with FAAM and the Meteorological Office. A broader FAAM / Met Office
response using the BAe 146-301 then continued throughout the emergency. This was
successful, but the massive disruption to ongoing scientific work created a realisation that the
nation could not rely upon aircraft which are dedicated to long term science programmes
necessarily being available in an emergency.
So the Civil Aviation Authority contracted for the Met Office, which in turn used its MRF
history and current FAAM / ARA experience, to create a modified C421 Met Office Civil
Contingency Aeroplane (Figure 9), which remains on standby for future atmospheric
emergencies in British airspace. Almost certainly this aircraft could not have been created
without the historic expertise that came from MRF.
Figure 9 Met Office Civil Contingency Aircraft G-HIJK (FAAM)
100Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
4.3 Smaller university aircraft
The involvement of various universities with MRF and FAAM through NERC, also built up a
realisation that at a lower scale research aircraft could be managed by individual universities.
The most successful and prominent of such aircraft was Cessna 182J G-AVCV which was
acquired and operated by the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
(UMIST) Atmospheric Physics Group (33). This aircraft, brought into service in 1983, built upon
the NERC funded community’s history with MRF. During the latter days of MRF it provided
a much lower cost partial stopgap, particularly for the active atmospheric sciences community
at UMIST (now University of Manchester). Work for it dried up, particularly with the advent
and growing maturity of FAAM, and it was nominally retired in 2012.
As the Manchester C182 came towards the end of its life, the University of Edinburgh started
to commission an instrumented Super Dimona aircraft, working partly in collaboration with
FAAM and ARSF within the NERC community. This aircraft has yet to make a mark in the
atmospheric science and aeronautics arenas, but is still young.
5. IN CONCLUSION
Britain has arguably the world’s longest and most influential history of atmospheric research
flying. The field’s origins lie in instrumented kites in the 19th century, the expansion of
meteorological forecasting in the first world war, and the first crude carriage of instrumentation
on manned aeroplanes certainly in 1918, and arguably as far back as 1916. The attachment of
the Meteorological Office’s Alan Brewer to the Farnborough High Altitude Flight in 1942 was
a significant landmark and eventually led to the formation of MRF in 1946, but from a base of
existing expertise built up over the previous 40 or more years. Brewer in particular re-
discovered that obtaining quality results and good value from such flying requires three
strands: aircraft capability, instrument capacity and scientific understanding.
Whilst there was development in meteorology overall between the wars, and clear appreciation
of the importance of good forecasting, the inter-war history of the most prominent Duxford
Met Flight is one of static instrumentation, crude and unimproved aeroplanes, and little
engagement with the scientific community beyond provision of simple data in support of
routine forecasting.
Post war, there were three organisations in the United Kingdom with a role of obtaining
airborne meteorological data. The activities of THUM and 202 Sqn were substantial and
admirable, but their lack of continuous instrument development and engagement with the
research community left them in a position of only supporting routine forecasting; worthy but
limited successors to the inter-war Duxford met flight. It could reasonably be argued that with
a similar research engagement to that at MRF, perhaps through MRF itself, both could have
made substantially greater contributions to the sister sciences of aeronautics and meteorology.
The three-strand approach started with the work of Shaw and his associates before WW1,
continued with Clayton, Atkins and Douglas, who between them inspiring the creation of
Meteor Flight in 1918, and which ended with post-war demobilisation in 1919. It was
101Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
recreated by Brewer and the team he built from 1942, remained in place throughout the history
of MRF, and continued subsequently in Universities and with FAAM. There may be useful
parallels here in other branches of scientific or aeronautical development, but the author will
not attempt to draw those here; the reader may wish to.
The core period of MRF’s operation from 1946-2001 remains the most significant in this
particular history. MRF was at the forefront of creating much of the modern understanding of
the atmosphere including stratospheric dryness, planetary atmosphere circulation,
characteristics of the tropopause, speed corrections to airborne temperature measurements,
airborne observations of radiative transfer, velocity/compressibility corrections to airborne
temperature measurements, detailed understanding of clear air turbulence, and the discovery of
solar absorption by clear air. It also made hopefully permanent (at least in the UK) the three-
strand approach to atmospheric research flying, and established the main fields of
instrumentation work.
It is believed that this paper has also illustrated the paramount importance, through over 100
years of atmospheric aeronautical research, of the continuity of high quality people on whom
such work rests far more than on any individual instrument or aeroplane. In this regard, the
United Kingdom has been particularly fortunate or even prescient, in never losing a core of
skilled people who could continue this work.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank for their assistance in researching this paper, Dr. Ann Webb at
the University of Manchester for advice concerning the history of their C182 aircraft, and Mr
Geoff Butler at the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust for historical documents from the early
period of MRF at Farnborough. Advice and support from several staff at the National
Aerospace Library in Farnborough was also extremely valuable, Dr. Jonathan Taylor at the
Met Office kindly checked this paper for accuracy, sourced the right hand part of Figure 4, and
provided some expanded information on MRF’s scientific impact.
G B Gratton
Dr. Guy Gratton is the current Head of Facility at the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric
Measurements [FAAM], which is a joint entity of the Natural Environment Research Council
[NERC] and the Met Office). He was originally an RAE Farnborough Student Apprentice, and
then later a Trials Officer at A&AEE Boscombe Down, although he wasn’t part of MRF. He
has a background in flight testing and airworthiness, and has also been an academic at Brunel
University specialising in similar topics before moving to FAAM in 2008. His degrees are in
Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southampton, and he also continues to engage
with aeronautical research primarily through Brunel University.
102Journal of Aeronautical History Paper No. 2012/06
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