Of the various goals expressed in the SONEX White Paper, the following three emerged as the drivers in site selection and flight plans:

1. Climatology of UT/LS NO_x, O₃, with other ozone precursors and tracers in the North Atlantic, including latitudinal gradients to include regions of high/low air traffic and high/low continental influence.
2. At major staging locations, especially in eastern North America, perform flights to evaluate the NO_x budget, using tracer correlations (H₂O/N₂O/CH₄/NMHC/CO₂) with NO_x to identify surface sources, stratosphere sources and aircraft sources.
3. To the extent practical (1-3 flights/site) perform dedicated flights with partner missions, including sampling in the same air mass to intercompare DC-8 with non-DC-8 instruments.