The team depart Heathrow and overnight in Oslo.

Flight Oslo to Longyearbyen. Retrieved airfreight cargo and paid outstanding fees. Met airport manager and reunited with seafreight cargo. Arranged airport security passes. All Amélie's preparations came to fruition. Started to sort cargo and set up office. Moved into apartment/rooms. Did first provisions shop. Had dinner with AWI Polar5 team and also bumped into BAS student Emma Smith here on summer school. AZ flew Duxford to Trondheim.

-12 C, 35 km/h

The aircraft with Al and Liam flew Trondheim to Tromso and on to Longyearbyen arriving late afternoon. Tom checked and calibrated the CAPS cloud probe. Barb checked and aligned her PCASP instruments. The rest of us pretty much finished sorting through cargo, organising the office and starting to assemble equipment racks ready for the install which should start tomorrow. We are yet to find out if the install can be in the hangar or whether we will be out in the cold.

-10 C, 20km/h

A very successful day installing all the outside sensors on the aircraft. It was a sunny day, at least until just after lunch when the sun disappears behind a mountain for the rest of the day but the wind brought a significant windchill making breaks to warm hands essential. The aircraft is parked quite a way from the hangar so we had to be sure to remember all the items and tools we needed for each instrument. Tomorrow morning we will all do a rifle training course and then start on installation of the aircraft internal rack equipment. Unfortunately we also lose our hangar office space for a few days so we will have to spend some time packing and moving.

Learning about Polar Bears this morning including flare gun and rifle training run by the University (UNIS). In all their experience they have always been able to frighten any bears off and have never had to shoot at them. On the range Barb proved to be the best shot for a complete beginner. There was some controversy as to whether Russ or Amélie had managed a bullseye. The hole was in Amélie's target but Russ had mistakenly been firing at her target as well! As a final exercise we had to shoot 4 rounds each in a 10 second counted period to add a bit of realistic stress to the situation.

In the afternoon we resumed work fitting the instrumentation managing to get two of the three instrument racks into the aircraft leaving a third to do and all the cabling and ground testing to do hopefully tomorrow.

Amélie cooked us all tea in the apartment. -8 C, 40 km/h

We moved everything out of our office at the airport as it is required for meetings for the next couple of days.

Ran through the aircraft emergency kit i.e. tents, stove etc. Made up ground power lead which we will share with the Polar 5 aircaft. Informed that we don't have permission from the Norwegian authorities to fly low level. Found we need to obtain a 110v transformer for the aircraft heaters, none available locally.

Fitted the aircraft seat and final rack. Plumbed the aerosol inlet and started cabling all the rack equipment.

Tom cooked a curry in the apartment. -12 C, 20 km/h

FAAM aircraft came in on their first science flight and to deliver a spare part for the Lance to collect.

We finished the fit inside the aircraft and have started ground testing. Permissions for low flying were granted. We have a small oil leak on one engine but no great concern at present.

We saw aurora in the evening.

Tom, Russ, Alex and Barb flew an instrument test flight, flight 180.

Alex, Russ and Barb flew flight 181.

Amelie, Barb and Tom flew flight 182. Disk corruption on data download but retrieved.

Tom, Barb and Russ flew flight 183. Disk corruption on data download. MASIN Disk rebuild.

Alex, Barb, Amelie on flight 184. Polar bear sightings! Amelie's birthday.

Tom, Barb, Russ on flight 185.

Russ repaired CAPS CIP heater.

Amelie, Barb, Tom on flight 186.

Alex, Barb, Tom on flight 187.

An early start to catch flights back to UK for everyone.