Retrieving Storm Electric Fields from Aircraft Field Mill Data. Part II: Applications

Abstract

Abstract The Lagrange multiplier theory developed in Part I of this study is applied to complete a relative calibration of a Citation aircraft that is instrumented with six field mill sensors. When side constraints related to average fields are used, the Lagrange multiplier method performs well in computer simulations. For mill measurement errors of 1 V m−1 and a 5 V m−1 error in the mean fair-weather field function, the 3D storm electric field is retrieved to within an error of about 12%. A side constraint that involves estimating the detailed structure of the fair-weather field was also tested using computer simulations. For mill measurement errors of 1 V m−1, the method retrieves the 3D storm field to within an error of about 8% if the fair-weather field estimate is typically within 1 V m−1 of the true fair-weather field. Using this type of side constraint and data from fair-weather field maneuvers taken on 29 June 2001, the Citation aircraft was calibrated. Absolute calibration was completed using the “pitch down method” developed in Part I, and conventional analyses. The resulting calibration matrices were then used to retrieve storm electric fields during a Citation flight on 2 June 2001. The storm field results are encouraging and agree favorably in many respects with results derived from earlier (iterative) techniques of calibration.