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Requesting the Facility & Requesting Facility Instruments for other NSF aircraft

 

Requestable Facilities

  • The King Air with both facility-supported and user-supplied instrumentation,
  • The Wyoming Cloud Lidar (WCL) on either the King Air or other NSF aircraft
  • The Wyoming Cloud Radar (WCR) on either the King Air or other NSF aircraft

For details about each facility, navigate to the aircraft and instrument pages.

The facility's planning calendar shows upcoming projects and scheduling for the King Air and facility instruments.

Overview of Request Process

Several routes exist for UWKA facility requests, depending on whether they follow NSF Track 1 (Education and Outreach) or Track 3 (Science Field Campaign) routes, or are funded outside of the NSF. The UWKA facility has completed many projects outside of NSF sponsorship, however, availability for NSF projects is prioritized under the facility’s cooperative agreement sponsorship. The UWKA facility manager and personnel are available to assist potential investigators at all stages of the project request, for questions regarding flight operations, project payload and instrument development, and project logistics. Please note that, following announced changes to NSF's Facilities and Instrumentation Request Process (FIRP), all UWKA facility requests must be made via a facility-specific request form. Please contact the Facility Manager (Jeff French) or Associate Facility Manager (Matt Burkhart) to obtain this request form.

Requests through NSF

The NSF FIRP guidelines must be followed for both Tracks. In brief, the requirements are:

NSF Track 1

  • A Statement of Interest (SoI) is recommended and must be emailed to the NSF FARE Program with a copy to the facility provider.
  • The Facility Request must be submitted 1 month prior to proposal submission.
  • Proposal timeline is 9 to 12 months prior to start of facility use activity.

NSF Track 3

  • An SoI is required 3 months prior to proposal submission and must be emailed to the NSF FARE Program with a copy to the facility provider. Activities will then be deemed either "straightforward" or "complex"
  • The Facility Request must be submitted 2 months prior to proposal submission.
  • Proposal timeline is dependend on the activity
    • "Straightforward" timeline is 15 to 21 months in advance of start of facility use activity.
    • "Complex" timeline is 18 to 24 months in advance of start of facility use activity.

Requests other than through NSF

Please reach out directly to the contacts for Facility Requests to discuss facility availability and instrumentation prior to completing the facility request form. Discussions with the facility will help define the expected timeline, which will also depend on the scale of the planned project. Following this, the facility request form should then be completed and sent in directly to the facility manager.

Contacts for Facility Requests

King Air inquires: Jeff French and Matt Burkhart | jfrench@uwyo.edu (307) 766-4143 and monoski@uwyo.edu | (307) 766-4150

WCL inquires: Owen Cruikshank | ocruiksh@uwyo.edu | (307) 766-3245

WCR inquires: Coltin Grasmick | cgrasmic@uwyo.edu | (307) 766-4899

Feasibility analysis

Each request is assessed by UWKA facility personnel for feasibility in terms of intended payload, flight operations, and project logistics, as well as anticipated budgetary needs. This assessment occurs for both NSF and non-NSF projects. The investigator(s) may be contacted at this time to answer additional questions regarding various aspects of the project. Facility personnel will attempt to work through any potential issues noted during the feasibility assessment, in order to give each project as high a chance of success as possible given operational and availability constraints. Requests may be made at this point to adjust payload, logistics, or other parameters as needed to maintain feasibility while accomplishing the project’s goals.

Once the request passes feasibility analysis, the project will be committed to the UWKA’s deployment calendar. Once the NSF proposal is funded, or (for a non-NSF project) a contract has been finalized, the UWKA team will begin working with the investigator(s) towards implementation.