The NRC maintains a fleet of highly specialized and customizable research aircrafts to assist industry with the testing and demonstrations of aeronautical technologies in the areas of airborne research, flight mechanics and avionics. The Convair 580 (Twin-Engine Aircraft) is one aircraft in NRC’s fleet. The NRC’s Convair is used for long distance operations and carries several racks of scientific equipment and instrumentation. The Aircraft is a multi-purpose flying laboratory supporting projects in atmospheric studies (low-level smog in urban areas, cloud physics, cloud chemistry, aircraft icing), gradient aeromagnetics, advanced navigation, spotlight synthetic aperture radar and precision aircraft positioning using differential global positioning system (DGPS) techniques. The aircraft also features a suite of standard research support capabilities that include high-speed data acquisition systems, multi-camera video recording systems, free-stream chemistry sampling inlets, multiple navigation sensors, high bandwidth data-link communications, electro-optic and infrared sensors, wing-mounted pylons, and wingtip-mounted pods.