ER-2 NAVIGATION DATA
- Overview
- The Aircraft
- Instrumentation
- The Data
- Characteristics
- Flight Coordination Table
- The Files
- Size and Naming Conventions
- Formats
- Data Access and Contacts
- FTP Site
- Contacts
- References
The NASA ER2NAV data set is part of the atmospheric
measurements collected in the intensive observation period of the Tropical
Ocean Global Atmosphere-Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment
(TOGA-COARE). The ER-2 was deployed under the direction of John Arveson of
the NASA Ames Research Center High Altitude Flight Facility.
The NASA ER-2 is a high
altitude, single pilot aircraft deployed globally in support of a variety of
atmospheric research projects. It has a maximum altitude of 70,000 feet (21
km), a range of 3000 nautical miles, a maximum flight duration of 8 hours
(nominal 6.5 hours) and a top speed of 410 knots true air speed. The aircraft
accommodates about 2700 pounds (1200 kg) of payload and offers the following
science support systems:
- Inertial navigation
- Satellite NBS Time Code receiver
- Navigation data recording system
- Real-time telemetry data link
For the TOGA COARE campaign, the ER-2 payload consisted of:
The ER-2 navigation data set consists of navigation parameters gathered by
the aircraft's onboard systems in support of the payload instruments. It
includes times and georeferencing information which can be used to determine
temporal and spatial coordinates associated with each measurement collected
from the above instruments.
The following table relates the ER-2 NAV data files to ER-2 and DC-8 flight
numbers and to the dates for the 13 mission flights of the NASA/TOGA COARE
campaign. The objectives column is included for the convenience of the user;
the mission objective was convection when it was forecast in the target area
and radiation when it was not.
| Date(UTC) | ER-2 Flight | DC-8 Flight | ER-2
File | Objective |
|---|
| Jan
11-12 | 93-053 | 93-01-06 | er2_3.dat | Radiation |
| Jan
17-18 | 93-054 | 93-01-07 | er2_4.dat | Convection |
| Jan
18-19 | 93-055 | 93-01-08 | er2_5.dat | Convection |
| Jan
25-26 | 93-056 | 93-01-09 | er2_6.dat | Radiation |
| jan 31-Feb
1 | 93-057 | 93-01-10 | er2_8.dat | Radiation |
| Feb
4 | 93-060 | 93-01-11 | er2_10.dat | Convection |
| Feb
6 | | 93-01-12 | | Convection |
| Feb
7 | 93-061 | | er2_11.dat | |
| Feb
8-9 | 93-062 | 93-01-13 | er2_12.dat | Convection |
| Feb
10-11 | 93-063 | 93-01-14 | er2_13.dat | Convection |
| Feb
17-18 | | 93-01-15 | | Convection |
| Feb
20-21 | 93-065 | 93-01-16 | er2_15.dat | Convection |
| Feb
22-23 | 93-066 | 93-01-17 | er2_16.dat | Convection |
| Feb
23-24 | 93-067 | 93-01-18 | er2_17.dat | Radiation |
|
The ER-2 navigation data set contains 18 ASCII files ranging in size from ~1
MB to ~4MB with a total volume for the dataset of ~27 MB. Each file contains
data from one flight, of which 13 were mission flights and 5 were ferry or
pilot proficiency flights. The naming convention for the files is er2_X.dat
where X is the flight number.
Each data file contains a header record that is formatted
as described in the following table:
TABLE E-6A
U2/USER PLUS DIGITIZED ANALOG VALUES
HEADER INFORMATION
CHARACTERS CONTENTS
---------- --------
RECORD 1
2 - 7 "FLIGHT"
9 - 14 The flight identifier, which consists of the last two digits of
the fiscal year, a dash, and a three digit unique number that
identifies the flight within the fiscal year (e.g. 92-001).
17 - 20 "DATE"
22 - 29 The data of the flight at liftoff, in the form MM/DD/YY, where
MM gives the number of the month,
DD gives the day
YY gives the last 2 digits of the current year
32 - 34 "A/C"
36 - 38 Tail number of the aircraft (706, 708 or 709).
41 - 47 "TAKEOFF"
49 - 56 The takeoff time, in the form HH:MM/DD, where
HH gives the hour (24-hour clock)
MM gives the minute
DD gives the day of the month at takeoff.
59 - 62 "LAND"
64 - 71 The landing time, in the same form as "TAKEOFF", except that
DD gives the day of the month at landing.
82 - 101 "RECORDER UNIT NUMBER"
103 ID number of the navigation data recorder.
104 - 200 Blank
RECORDS 2 - 5 Title that serves to label the contents of the data records.
NOTE: Characters not explicitly mentioned here are filled with blanks, i.e.
the ASCII code for "space".
(END of Table E-6A)
The data part of each file is formatted as described in the following table:
TABLE E-6B
U2/USER PLUS DIGITIZED ANALOG VALUES
DATA RECORD FORMAT
(English Units)
CHARACTER CONTENTS
--------- --------
02 - 12 The time and day, in the form HH:MM:SS/DD, where
HH gives the hour (24-hour clock)
MM gives the minute
SS gives the second
DD gives the day of the month.
15 Time source indicator,
"G" -- from GOES satellite
"I" -- Internal time source
18 - 25 Latitude, hHH:MM.t, as follows:
18 h -- hemisphere, "N" for Northern, or "S" for
Southern.
19 - 20 DD -- Degrees of latitude.
21 : -- separator between degrees and minutes.
22 - 25 MM.t -- Minutes and tenths of minutes of latutude,
(with a decimal point).
27 - 35 Longitude, hDDD:MM.t, as follows:
27 h -- hemisphere, "W" for Western, or "E" for
Eastern
28 - 30 DDD -- Degrees of longitude.
31 : -- separator between degrees and minutes.
32 - 35 MM.t -- Minutes and tenths of minutes of longitude,
(with a decimal point).
37 - 41 Altitude, in feet (from 0 - 70000).
42 "space" if below 70000 feet, or
"+" if over 70000 feet, (if over 70000 feet, the
Altitude (37-41) will contain 70000.)
45 - 47 True Air Speed, in nautical miles per hour.
49 - 53 Aircraft Pitch, in degrees, given to tenths (with a decimal
point). Positive indicates nose up.
55 - 59 Aircraft Roll, in degrees, given to tenths (with a decimal
point. Positive indicates right roll, i.e. right wing
down.
61 - 66 True heading, in degrees, given to tenths (with a decimal
Point). Zero degrees indicates North, positive to the
East of North. (90 indicates due East; 180 indicates
South; and 270 indicates West.)
67 - 72 North-South velocity, in nautical miles per hour.
74 - 77 East-West velocity, in nautical miles per hour.
79 - 82 Vertical velocity, in feet per second.
85 - 87 Ground Speed, in nautical miles per hour.
94 - 96 Computed ground speed, in nautical miles per hour. (Square
root of the sum of the squares of the North-South and
East-West velocities.)
100 - 103 Computed wind speed, in nautical miles per second. (The vector
difference of the True air speed and True heading and
North-South and East-West velocities.
107 - 109 Computed wind direction, in degrees from North (clockwise is
positive).
113 - 116 Computed vertical velocity (in feet per second). Computed
from the altitude difference and time difference
between consecutive records.
122 - 124 Computed angle of attack (degrees), i.e. Arcsine. (Vertical
velocity divided by ground speed.)
134 - 138 Static air temperature in degrees C. Computed from the first
digitized analog value, if recorded.
UNITS/SCALES OF THE DAV'S
DEPEND UPON THE QUANTITY MEASURED BY EACH DAV
156 - 163 Values for first Digitized Analog Value
164 - 171 Values for second Diigitized Analog Value
172 - 179 Values for third Digitized Analog Value
180 - 187 Values for fourth Digitized Analog Value
188 - 200 Blank
NOTES
-----
Characters not explicitly mentioned here are filled with blanks. Characters
corresponding to parameters that were not recorded during the flight are set
to blanks.
(End of Table E-6B)
The ER-2 NAV data files are tarred and compressed in the file
"er2.tar.Z."
ER-2 flight track images were produced by the AMPR team for 12 mission
flights. The naming convention for these files is
"amprft93.XXX_toga_track.gif" where XXX is the Julian day on which the flight
took off.
The data may be retrieved from this document
or directly via ftp:
ftp disc.gsfc.nasa.gov
logon: anonymous
passwd: <your internet address >
cd data/toga_coare/aircraft/nasa_er2/nav
For questions about Goddard DAAC datasets, contact:
Pat Hrubiak
EOS Distributed Active Archive Center(DAAC)
Code 610.2
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
Internet: hrubiak@disc.gsfc.nasa.gov
(301) 286-1381 (voice)
(301) 286-1775 (FAX)
For detailed information about the ER-2 aircraft, contact the
ER-2 Aircraft Program at the Dryden Flight Research Facility.
NASA/TOGA COARE Science Data Workshop - II Proceedings,
March 15-17 1994, Albuquerque, New Mexico, NASA TOGA COARE Project
Office, M.S. 483, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA
26381-0001
ER-2 Flight Summary Report, NASA ER-2 Deployment, Tropical Ocean
Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment,
Aircraft Data Facility, NASA Ames Research Center, Mail Stop 240-6, Moffett
Field, CA 94035-1000
Mission Summary Reports, TOGA COARE, November 1993, NASA
TOGA COARE Project Office, NASA Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 483,
Hampton, VA 23666
ER-2
NAV data
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