Instrument: Wire Flyer Towed Profiling System

Description from Roman et al. (2019):
The Wire Flyer towed vehicle is a platform able to collect high-resolution water column sections. The vehicle is motivated by a desire to effectively capture spatial structures at the submesoscale. The Wire Flyer profiles up and down along a ship-towed cable autonomously using controllable wings for propulsion. At ship speeds between 2 and 5 kt (1.02–2.55 m s−1), the vehicle is able to profile over prescribed depth bands down to 1000 m. The vehicle carries sensors for conductivity, temperature, depth, oxygen, turbidity, chlorophyll, pH, and oxidation reduction potential. During normal operations, the vehicle is typically commanded to cover vertical regions between 300 and 400 m in height with profiles that repeat at kilometer spacing. The vertical profiling speed can be user-specified up to 150 m min−1. During operations, an acoustic modem is used to communicate with the vehicle to provide status information, data samples, and the ability to modify the sampling pattern.  

Detailed information can be found in the following publication:
Roman, C., Ullman, D. S., Hebert, D., & Licht, S. (2019). The Wire Flyer Towed Profiling System. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 36(2), 161–182. doi:10.1175/jtech-d-17-0180.1