ACTOS is back but without HELIOS

The last three days we learned the meaning of bank holidays: our helicopter had to stay on ground until some money found its way from one bank in Leipzig to another one on Barbados which really still takes days. However, it arrived yesterday and we are allowed to fly again. Today in the morning, the weather conditions were not suitable to start a measurement flight: we had showers and high cumulus towers all around. Thus we were waiting for our chance and it came: Around noon the showers were gone and the clouds to the east looked nice and calm.
As usual, HELIOS started first, but in the last minute he realized that Christoph was not there to carry him. This must have been a real shock for HELIOS and disturbed immediately his power supply.
Bad-smelling smoke came out and the start was stopped. A second try was done without HELIOS and was more succesful. The measurements started with a full profile from 100 m above water to approximately 2400 m. During the profile we passed several cumulus clouds with variable height, thickness and cloud base. On top of these clouds was again a stratified cloud layer, today it was more homogeneous than last time. Our maximum height was above this layer and a view from there is shown on the upper picture. A first horizontal leg was flown with ACTOS in this cloud before we declined below (see picture on the left) and started the chasing of cumulus clouds. This was really nice and effective and PICT had again the chance to measure lots of droplets. Close to the end of the flight the small cumulus clouds dissappeared and larger ones were visible near the airport. Very soon after landing it started raining again. So we had at least one nice flight today and hope that HELIOS will recover and be back with us soon!