Operator of HALO is the DLR Flight Experiments (FX) facility. DLR-FX operates the DLR aircraft fleet, the largest civil research aircraft fleet in Europe.

FX is authorised by the German aviation authority (Luftfahrtbundesamt, LBA) to perform maintenance and repair work (including for instance instrument installations) on the research aircraft as a so-called EASA Part-145 Maintenance Organisation. Furthermore, FX has an approved Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation (CAMO) as well as a Quality Management (QM) office.

DLR-FX is structured into three departments. The flight department of FX (Flugbetrieb, FB) consists of the two research flight departments in Oberpfaffenhofen in Braunschweig, including the CAMO and QM offices as well as the finance/logistics teams. The Design Organisation (Entwicklungsbetrieb, EB) within FX works on the design and airworthiness certification of technical modifications of the aircraft, in particular scientific instruments. The project management department acts as the „single point of contact“ for the scientific users. It coordinates the chronological sequence of project-related tasks between the flight department, the involved development organisations (DLR and others) and the scientific users (instrument developers and operators) as well as administrative and financial aspects of a project.

The research flight department in Oberpfaffenhofen, which is responsible for HALO, is structured into the following four groups:

• Part-145 Maintenance Organisation („Werft“)
• Operations
• Engineering („Flugversuchstechnik“)
• Sensor and data team

Further information can be found here: Flight Experiments homepage (in English) | German version