SCAMP: Focused Sonic Boom Experimental Execution and Measurement Data Acquisition

Abstract

This paper documents the May 2011 experimental flight test acoustic and meteorological measurements gathered as part of the Superboom Caustic Analysis and Measurement Program (SCAMP). The SCAMP team, led by Wyle and NASA includes partners from the Boeing Company, Pennsylvania State University, Gulfstream Aerospace, Eagle Aeronautics and Central Washington University and collaborators from Cessna, Northrop-Grumman and Nagoya University. The objectives of the SCAMP research program are to validate, via flight test measurements, models for sonic boom signatures in and around focal zones, and to apply these models to predict focus booms for low-boom aircraft designs. This experiment required precision flight of an F-18B executing different maneuvers to create focused sonic booms. The experiment was designed to capture concurrent F-18B onboard flight data instrumentation, high-fidelity, ground-based and elevated acoustic data, and surface and upper air meteorological measurements. The ground-based acoustic instrumentation array was located at the Cuddeback Air-to-Ground Gunnery Range, California. Primary acoustic measurements were on-track, in a plane of symmetry corresponding to the formal theory. Off-track measurements were achieved by flying the aircraft along a path laterally displaced from the linear measurement array. Under SCAMP, a process was developed whereby a trained measurement team provided immediate feedback based on aural observations to the On-Site Test Director. In real time, desired changes of the F-18B way points and flight paths were then relayed to the pilot, thereby improving focused boom measurement captures and data outcomes. During the two weeks of flight operations, 70 sonic boom events were captured by the instrumentation systems.