The Use of Pressure Fluctuations on the Nose of an Aircraft for Measuring Air Motion

Abstract

An air-motion sensing technique is described for measurement of attack and sideslip angles and dynamicpressure. The sensing probe consists of an array of five pressure holes in the standard radome of a twin-jetresearch aircraft. Comparisons are made with air motion measurements (angle of attack and dynamic pressure) obtained from a conventional differential pressure flow angle sensor at the tip of a nose boom 1.5fuselage diameters ahead of the aircraft body. The results indicate that the radome system works well downto scale sizes slightly larger than the fuselage diameter. (Finer scale measurements were limited by pressuretransducer response.) An insitu calibration technique is described for the determination of the empiricalradome angle-pressure difference sensitivity factor k, as a function of aircraft Mach number. The value ofk, so determined at low Mach numbers, is in approximate agreement with that calculated for potential flowfor a spherical radome. The in-situ technique applied to the conventional nose boom sensor indicates thatthe value of k based on wind tunnel calibrations may not apply for the present installation. The time response of the conventional pressure system on the NCAR Sabreliner twin-jet aircraft is estimated on the basis of an in-flight comparison between the conventional pressure probe and a fast-responsegust probe flown together on a nose boom. Comparison of the power spectra of the conventional and radomeangles of attack for a traverse in boundary-layer turbulence indicates that the response of the radome systemis superior to the conventional system due to the shorter pressure lines that can be used.