While the airborne chase team was absolutely instrumental in the recovery of EDGE3, there were some issues with getting the tracking and communications signals in to and out of the metal Cessna without being able to mount antennas on the exterior of the aircraft.  As a result, the airborne team was unable to actively track the payload, relying on the ground teams to relay the position of the payload to them.  Once the payload was on the ground, the airborne team was able to get close enough to receive that critical final coordinate set, but they needed to fly a search pattern to do so.  As a result, we decided to try a new aircraft for this flight: a Diamond DA-20.  This aircraft is an entirely composite airframe, and, as a result, all of the tracking signals were able to be actively received and acted upon by the airborne team, without the need to rely on the ground units.  Additionally, because we had a lead ground unit about an hour ahead of the two units performing the radio test, the airborne team served as the communications coordination point between the chase teams that didn't have line-of-sight on the ground. 

Additionally, the cabin of the DA-20 was much quieter than the Cessna, resulting in much improved understandability for all of the teams while communicating with each other.  The only drawback to this aircraft is that it only has two seats.  Fortunately, it has a big brother - the DA-40, and we have access to rent one of those, too.  Given the success that we had with the DA-20, we'll be using the DA-40 for the next flight.

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