Correction of Flux Valve–Based Heading for Improvement of Aircraft Wind Observations

Abstract

method for correcting the magnetic deviation error from planes using a flux valve heading sensor is presented. This error can significantly degrade the quality of the wind data reported from certain commercial airlines. A database is constructed on a per-plane basis and compared to multiple model analyses and observations. A unique filtering method is applied using coefficients derived from this comparison. Three regional airline fleets hosting the Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Reporting (TAMDAR) sensor were analyzed and binned by error statistics. The correction method is applied to the outliers with the largest deviation, and the wind observational error was reduced by 22% (2.4 kt; 1 kt = 0.51 m s?1), 50% (8.2 kt), and 68% (20.5 kt) for each group.