To comply with the General Conformity Rule of the Clean Air Act, the Department of Defense (DoD) must evaluate all emissions of any nonattainment pollutant from new stationary and mobile sources, including aircraft operating below 3,000 feet. Recent changes to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) have resulted in nonattainment designations for particulate matter (PM) with an average diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM 2.5) at many U.S. military bases. If any of the criteria pollutants are projected to exceed the minimum emissions levels for the affected air district, DoD must reduce total base emissions to conform to the State Implementation Plan for that area.

In April 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially released a letter encouraging development of an interim PM test method for high performance gas turbine engines that would be accurate, repeatable, timely, and cost-effective. The objective of this project was to conduct a "Quick Look" test and data analysis that will expedite the resolution of technical issues related to implementation of an interim PM test method for engines such as the F-135. The instruments and sampling system design was the same as those proposed for the final PM emissions measurements. A Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) integrated the contributions of project participants into a clear, concise document that described what was accomplished, how it was done, and by whom. This work was continued under project WP-1538.