T-28 Formation Flights with the Special-Purpose Test Vehicle for Atmospheric
Research (SPTVAR) for Calibration of Electric Field Vector Retrievals
The armored T-28 deployed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to carry out electric
field measurement intercomparisons with the SPTVAR aircraft operated by
the New Mexico School of Mining and Technology (NMIMT). Flights were carried
out in the vicinity of small thunderstorms that formed near NMIMT's Langmuir
Laboratory, west of Socorro. The aircraft flew in close formation around
the bases of these storms, as well as through some of the precipitation
shafts. The SPTVAR was equipped with two quasi-independent systems of electric
field meters. The flights thus yielded 3 sets of measurements, two
from SPTVAR and one from the T-28, from which estimates of the ambient
vector electric field and aircraft charge were derived. Comparisons among
the 3 systems were generally good, and allowed some exploration of the
effects of corona emission on the measurements.
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Flight 690 - 7/31/97
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Flight 691 - 8/04/97
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Flight 692 - 8/06/97
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Flight 693 - 8/06/97
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Flight 694 - 8/09/97
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Flight 695 - 8/10/97
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Flight 696 - 8/11/97
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Flight 697 - 8/13/97
The
report from this field project is now available
in PDF format, which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have
this program, you can download it at
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html.
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
501 E. St. Joseph Street
Rapid City, SD 57701-3995
(605)394-2291
The data also form the basis for the following paper, published in late
1999:
Mo, Q., R. E. Feind, F. J. Kopp, and A. G. Detwiler, 1999: Improved
electric field measurements with the T-28 armored research airplane. J.
Geophys. Res.- Atmospheres,
104,
24,485-24,497.
