Airborne measurement of radioactivity

The German Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD) is responsible for the surveillance of radioactivity in the atmosphere. In case of an radioactive emergency radioactive plumes may be expected in heights up to the tropopause depending on the type of accident. For this reason aircraft measurements are necessary as a supplement to groundbased measuring sites, especially in case of non available details about the source of radioactive release and lack of details about the accident. The authors present an aircraft type Learjet 35A used for localizing radioactive contaminated air masses up to 10,000 m and the measurement of artificial radionuclides on aerosols. For this purpose the aircraft is equipped with an isokinetic high-volume sampler for collection of aerosols on filters outside the pressurized cabin and an onboard gamma spectrometry system with a high purity germanium detector to analyze the interchangeable contaminated filters during flight as well as a dose ratemeter and a GPS (Global Positioning System) for navigation. The collection of gaseous iodine is optional. The meteorological parameters temperature, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction are determined as well. Resulting data are transmitted by global VHF datalink from the plane to the DWD headquarter and used for verifying the prognosis. (orig.)