Flight Evaluation of a Simple Total Energy-Rate System With Potential Wind-Shear Application

SUMMARY Wind shears can create havoc during aircraft terminal area operations and have been cited as the primary cause of several major aircraft accidents. A simple sensor, potentially having application to the wind-shear problem, has been developed to rapidly measure aircraft total energy relative to the air mass. Combining this sensor with either a variometer or a rate-of-climb indi- cator provides a total energy-rate system which has been successfully applied in soaring flight. The measured rate of change of aircraft energy can poten- tially be used on display/control systems of powered aircraft to reduce glide- slope deviations caused by wind shear. This paper describes the experimental flight configuration and evaluations of the energy-rate system. Two mathematical models are developed: the first describes operation of the energy probe in a linear design region and the second model is for the nonlinear region. The calculated total energy rate