Development of Airborne Electric Field and Lightning Detection Instrumentation for Aviation Safety.

Abstract : The objectives of Phase I were to investigate the use of simple corona current instrumentation on aircraft to measure thunderstorm electric fields and to conduct a feasibility study of a single station aircraft lightning interferometer to detect the occurrence and position of lightning. Both of these techniques have the common purpose of providing warning to aircraft crews when they are approaching potentially hazardous clouds and thunderstorms. The electric field measurement has the advantage of detecting electrified clouds which may not be producing lightning flashes but are nevertheless dangerous because an aircraft can trigger lightning; however this is a relatively short range system (on the order of 10 to 20 miles). The interferometer, which responds to RF pulses from lightning, has the advantage of long range detection (more than 100 miles) and can map the the position of lightning flashes in a manner similar to the way radar maps areas of rain. Thus the systems complement each other.