Monday we start at nine clock. Before we can go take off with the planes, new ones need to be assembled, old ones tested and be repaired. Therefore we prepare an office that has been used as a storage room so that we can handle the bulky SUMOs inside. There are aluminum and wooden boxes all around, almost every does have a FRAGILE sticker on the side and accommodates sensitive instruments. One is even equipped with a “shock sensor”, that will make you know when it has been tackled too hard. There are planes of three groups, all of which require more or less attention. One by one, we test the electronics and sensors and replace small parts. Of course, everything takes longer than expected.

We do that at UNIS, the University Centre in Svalbard. It is a union of several Norwegian universities. A great place. From the outside it looks like a wooden spaceship and inside it is even better. All very modern and classy, you can hardly study any more luxurious. The webcam below is mounted on the roof.

It feels familiar to leave the plane in Longyearbyen and to trudge across the apron to the reception building. We have flown around this runway with our styrofoam planes almost exactly five years ago. Now we are here again, although the farewell then was somehow permanently. This time there is no rental car with the keys plugged for us in the parking lot. We line up in the jam-packed bus and get chauffeured the few miles from the airport to the city. This gives a sort of an instant feel of tourism.

It seems to have become full. There are a number of new houses, industrial buildings and hotels. Construction is going on in many places. But perhaps that just seems to have changed for us. We now reside close to downtown in the UNIS guest house, not in Nybyen in the old miners’ accommodation. During our last stay we were traveling by car very early and very late to fly out of the airport opening times. Now we are walking around the city in daytime.

Our first stop is the supermarket. The flight attendant did not want to give us (free) food, despite what the ticket said. And wifi was not working on board as well! The extensive breakfast at Oslo Airport was the last meal. Everything is familiar with slight changes. There is now a half-pipe on the main shopping street. We live nobly for arctic conditions, next door to the Radisson BLU Hotel which is hardly better. The rooms are almost brand new, with bathroom, kitchen and smooth Internet.

By night we meet at Kroa with the other scientific visitors. We revel in memories of past measurement campaigns.

…and this is the view from our rooms.

The flight to Longyearbyen leaves early. So we had a stop in Oslo and took a tour through the city.

Some last direct sun at the airport.

John Cassano from the University of Colorado flew our SUMO UAVs for meteorological research over the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica during the last two weeks (blog).

The SUMO UAVs were used from on-board the RV Polarstern by the Finnish Meteorological Institute for scientific research in the Weddell Sea/Antarctica. Short report by the Alfred Wegener Institut (in German).