VIS is a standard video camera packaged for flight use and mounted in a downward looking orientation. It provides a continuous view of the weather and terrain below the aircraft flight track. The VIS camera has a resolution of 20 meters and will be mounted to verify the aircraft flight track.

The Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (MIR) is a cross-track-scanning radiometer that measures radiation at nine frequencies. In every scanning cycle of about 3 seconds in duration, it views two external calibration targets. MIR responds predominantly to atmospheric parameters like water vapor, clouds, and precipitation.

The LIP (Lightning Instrument Package) measures lightning, electric fields, electric field changes, air conductivity. LIP provides real time electric field data for science and operations support.

The LIP is comprised of a set of optical and electrical sensors with a wide range of temporal, spatial, and spectral resolution to observe lightning and investigate electrical environments within and above thunderstorms. The instruments provide measurements of the air conductivity and vertical electric field above thunderstorms and provide estimates of the storm electric currents. In addition, LIP will detect total storm lightning and differentiate between intracloud and cloud-to-ground discharges. This data is used in studies of lightning/storm structure and lightning precipitation relationships.

The MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS) is a multispectral scanner configured to approximate the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS), an instrument to be orbited on the NASA EOS-AM1 platform. MODIS is designed to measure terrestrial and atmospheric processes. The MAS was a joint project of Daedalus Enterprises, Berkeley Camera Engineering, and Ames Research Center. The MODIS Airborne Simulator records fifty spectral bands.

EDOP is an X-band (9.6 GHz) Doppler radar nose-mounted in the ER-2. The instrument has two antennas: one nadir-pointing with pitch stabilization, and the other forward pointing. The general objectives of EDOP are the measurement of the vertical structure of precipitation and air motions in mesoscale precipitation systems and the development of spaceborne radar algorithms for precipitation estimation.

EDOP measures high-resolution time-height sections of reflectivity and vertical hydrometeor velocity (and vertical air motion when the hydrometeor fall speed and aircraft motions are removed). An additional capability on the forward beam permits measurement of the linear depolarization ratio (LDR) which provides useful information on orientation of the hydrometeors (i.e., the canting angle), hydrometeor phase, size, etc. The dual beam geometry has advantages over a single beam. For example, along-track horizontal air motions can be calculated by using the displacement of the ER-2 to provide dual Doppler velocities (i.e., forward and nadir beams) at a particular altitude.

EDOP is designed as a turn-key system with real-time processing on-board the aircraft. The RF system consists of a coherent frequency synthesizer which generates the transmitted and local oscillator frequencies used in the system, a pulse modulated (0.5 to 2.0 micro-second pulse) high gain 20 kW Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier which is coupled through the duplexer to the antenna, and the receiver which is comprised of a low-noise (~1dB) GaAs preamplifier followed by a mixer for each of the receive channels. The composite system generates a nadir oriented beam with a co-polarized receiver and a 350 forward directed beam with co- and cross- polarized receivers. The antenna design consists of two separate offset-fed parabolic antennas, with high polarization isolation feed horns, mounted in the nose radome of the ER-2. The antennas are 0.76 m diameter resulting in a 30 beamwidth and a spot size of about 1.2 km at the surface (assuming a 20 km aircraft altitude). The two beams operate simultaneously from a single transmitter.

The AMPR is a total power passive microwave radiometer producing calibrated brightness temperatures (TB) at 10.7, 19.35, 37.1, and 85.5 GHz. These frequencies are sensitive to the emission and scattering of precipitation-size ice, liquid water, and water vapor. The AMPR performs a 90º cross-track data scan perpendicular to the direction of aircraft motion. It processes a linear polarization feed with full vertical polarization at -45º and full horizontal polarization at +45º, with the polarization across the scan mixed as a function of sin2, giving an equal V-H mixture at 0º (aircraft nadir). A full calibration is made every fifth scan using hot and cold blackbodies. From a typical ER-2 flight altitude of ~20 km, surface footprint sizes range from 640 m (85.5 GHz) to 2.8 km (10.7 GHz). All four channels share a common measurement grid with collocated footprint centers, resulting in over-sampling of the low frequency channels with respect to 85.5 GHz.