Smoothing Improvement Factor in Omega Wind Errors

Abstract

The Omega navigation system will be used during FGGE to derive vertical profiles of horizontal wind field. The aircraft dropsonde system and the shipboard Omega system will be used for the purpose. Since considerable effort and money will be spent it is only natural that these systems be optimally deployed. For this, Michael Olson of NCAR and M. C. Poppe of Cambridge Engineering have independently derived Omega wind error predictions. Both have made use of a smoothing improvement factor (resulting from superior phase smoothing techniques) over a quadratic phase model. This paper gives a theoretical justification for the use of such a smoothing improvement factor and empirical evaluation of it.