Observational work is based around two facilities; a group which operates an aircraft and a group that operates a large range of surface based instrumentation including a tethered kite balloon. Both the aircraft and the balloon are heavily equipped with instrumentation for determining standard meteorological parameters and more specialised instrumentation for measuring turbulence, cloud, aerosol and radiation.

Aircraft have been operated by the Met Office since the 1930s, and the most recent aircraft is a BAe 146 operated in conjunction with the Natural Environment Research Council and university groups as the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM). Trans-national access to the BAe 146 aircraft by European research groups has been strongly encouraged by the European Union over recent years via STAARTE and CAATER contracts. European investigators are encouraged to apply for flying hours on the BAe146 and other European aircraft via the EUFAR Framework 6 proposal.

Areas of research

Apart from maintenance of these facilities, scientists at Farnborough and Cardington work in the following areas:

• Cloud physics
  
• Radiative transfer
  
• Remote sensing
  
• Tropospheric chemistry (exclusively through UK and EU collaborations)
  
• Boundary Layer