During the period 1988--1990, studies of atmospheric aerosol have been made over the Atlantic. These include measurement programs out of Ascension Island (8 ¿S, 14 ¿W), the Azores (38 ¿N, 25 ¿W), Iceland (63 ¿N, 23 ¿W), and from the United Kingdom over the Northeast Atlantic. For these studies the equipment deployed included an airborne backscatter lidar (operating at 10.6 μm), airborne particle-sounding probes, ground-based lidars (operating at 10.6, 0.53, and 0.35 μm), balloon radiosondes, and a Sun-tracking photometer. In addition, standard meteorological information has been incorporated along with, when appropriate, data from the SAGE II limb-sounding satellite. The present paper thus introduces an overview of the program together with an outline of the technology, measurement characteristics, and performance of the airborne equipment that determined the strategic planning of much of the work. The measurements themselves, made in the relatively clean period for the atmosphere before the Mount Pinatubo eruption, will be presented in a subsequent series of papers. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1995