T-28 Formation Flights with the Special-Purpose Test Vehicle for Atmospheric Research (SPTVAR) for Calibration of Electric Field Vector Retrievals (NMEX 1997)

Overview

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.

Research Flights

Reports
Report on T-28 Electric Field Measurements and Their Calibration (IAS Report R-98/01)

Improved electric field measurements with the T-28 armored research airplane

Data Access
NMEX 1997 Data Access

Other Project Web Pages
None known.