NAME Aircraft: NOAA P-3 Navigation, State, and Microphysics Parameters - Standard Tape Format (NOAA/AOC) 1.0 General Information The NAME Aircraft: P-3 Meteorology Navigation and State Parameters dataset in NOAA/AOC Standard Tape format is one of several datasets archived by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support (UCAR/JOSS) in support of the North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME). The data were collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/ Aircraft Operations Center P-3 aircraft (NOAA/AOC). 2.0 Data Contact Jose Meitin (meitin@ucar.edu) 3.0 Data and Format Information 3.1 Detailed Data Description This dataset is comprised of binary data files in NOAA/AOC Standard Tape Format. Data collected aboard the NOAA P-3 aircraft by AOC are stored to tape and labeled by flight number. The flight number consists of the year, month, and day of the flight presented as YYMMDD, preceeded by a one-letter designator indicating which P-3 the data came from. For example, flight number I010901 indicates the data were collected aboard the NOAA43 P-3 on Sept 1, 2001. See table 3.1.1 for a complete list of possible designators. Note that only the NOAA43 was flown during NAME, so all data files have names like IYYMMDD. Table 3.1.1 - aircraft designators Aircraft Designator Notes NOAA42 (N42RF) H First P3 NOAA43 (N43RF) I Second P3 During a P-3 flight, data are collected at two different rates: fast and slow. Slow data is collected at a rate of one record per second (1 Hz). The frequency at which fast data is collected varies. The lowest is 10 Hz for the radar altimeter 159 and 40 Hz for the the inertial parameters (lat,lon,heading,pitch, roll,etc.). After a flight, all output from the standard suite of instrumentation aboard the P3 are quality controlled (QC) with respect to other similar values. A choice is made of which pressure and temperature values will be used and modifications/edits are made to erroneous data that may be observed for the selected sensors. All pressure and temperature sensors are bench calibrated once a year. The data are stored in two types of records. Slow data records are always 440 bytes long. Ten slow data records are output to the file at a time, creating 4400 byte data blocks. Fast and slow data are interleaved onto a single tape. Fast data files always include slow data. Slow data files may contain fast data as well. All of the data are raw field data. The output of this process is data in the NOAA/AOC Standard Tape Format. This is the data provided in this dataset. 3.2 Detailed Format Description Conventions This data uses the following angle conventions. These are the same conventions used in the C-130 data. a) pitch: positive is nose up b) roll: positive is right wing down (facing forward) c) attack: positive has the airstream coming from below the aircraft's center line d) sideslip: positive has the airstream coming from the right side of the aircraft (facing forward) e) drift angle: positive has the ground track to the right of true heading For more information, refer to RAF Bulletin No. 23, Fig. 2.1 available on line: http://raf.atd.ucar.edu/Bulletins/bulletin23.html This data uses the following velocity conventions. These are the same conventions used in the C-130 data. a) U, E and X are E/W components (positive is to the east) b) V, N and Y are N/S components (positive is to the north) c) W is vertical component (positive is up, away from earth's surface) For more information, refer to RAF Bulletin No. 9 available on line: http://raf.atd.ucar.edu/Bulletins/b9appdx_B.html#WINDS Record format There are 6 record types within the AOC Standard Tape Format. These record types are as follows: TYPE 1 - HEADER RECORD. CONTAINS INFORMATION REGARDING FLIGHT IDENTIFICATION. TYPE 2 - ORIGINAL DATA TRANSFORMATION RECORD. CONTAINS COEFFICIENTS REQUIRED TO CONVERT ORIGINAL TAPE PARAMETERS TO SCIENTIFIC UNITS...RAW DATA ON RECORD 4 TO PROCESSED DATA ON RECORD 5. TYPE 3 - CONVERTED DATA TRANSFORMATION RECORD. ESSENTIALLY A METHOD FOR PROPER PLACING OF THE DECIMAL POINT IN RECORD 5. TYPE 4 - ORIGINAL DATA RECORD. TYPE 5 - CONVERTED/DERIVED DATA RECORD. TYPE 6 - TRAILER RECORD. Each record type is described in more detail below. Note that word address refers to the location in the record of the parameter. 3.2.1 TYPE 1 - HEADER RECORD WORD PARAMETER ------------------------------------- 1. TYPE OF RECORD (1) 2. NUMBER OF WORDS IN RECORD (17) 3. AIRCRAFT NUMBER (42 OR 43) 4. YEAR OF FLIGHT 5. MONTH 6. DAY 7. HOUR BEGINNNING OF FLIGHT 8. MINUTE 9. SECOND 10. HOUR END OF FLIGHT 11. MINUTE 12. SECOND 13. DATE PROCESSED MO DY Y (XXXXX) 14. DATE OF PROGRAM MO DY Y (XXXXX) 15. NOT USED 16. NOT USED 17. NUMBER OF TAPE 3.2.2 TYPE 2 - ORIGINAL DATA TRANSFORMATION RECORD 3.2.3 TYPE 3 - CONVERTED DATA TRANSFORMATION RECORD WORD PARAMETER --------------------------------------- 1. TYPE (3) 2. NUMBER OF WORDS IN RECORD (192) 3. WORD ADDRESS IN TYPE 5 RECORD 4. DIVISOR 5. WORD ADDRESS 6. DIVISOR ETC. Y = X(WORD ADDRESS) / DIVISOR CONTENTS OF RECORD 3 3 192 12 1 13 10 14 1 15 10 16 1 17 10 18 10 19 10 20 10 21 10 22 10 23 10 24 10 25 10 26 10 27 10 28 10 29 10 30 10 31 10 32 10 33 10 34 10 35 1 36 10 37 10 38 10 39 10 40 1 41 1 42 10 43 1 44 10 45 1 46 10 47 10 48 10000 49 10000 50 10 51 10 52 10 53 10 54 10 55 10 56 10 57 10 58 10 59 10 60 10 61 100 62 100 63 10 64 10 65 10 66 10 67 10 68 10 69 1000 70 1000 71 1 72 100 73 100 74 100 75 1 76 1 77 0 78 0 79 0 80 10 81 10 82 10 83 0 84 0 85 0 86 0 87 0 88 0 89 0 90 0 91 0 92 0 93 0 94 0 95 0 96 0 97 0 98 0 99 0 100 0 101 0 102 0 103 0 104 0 105 0 106 0 3.2.4 TYPE 4 - ORIGINAL DATA RECORD 3.2.5 TYPE 5 - CONVERTED/DERIVED DATA RECORD October 20, 2003 DATA RECORD TYPE 5 (Hurricane 2003) WORD SYM PARAMETER WORD SYM PARAMETER 1 TP TYPE(5) 26 HD HEADING (TRUE) 2 WD NO. WORDS/RECORD 27 PC PITCH 3 HR HOUR 28 RL ROLL 4 MN MINUTE 29 AA ATTACK ANGLE 5 SC SECOND 30 SA SLIP ANGLE 6 RC1 RECORD COUNT 31 J-W LIQ. WATER 7 RC2 RECORD COUNT 32 PQ DYNAMIC PRESSURE 8 SW1 SWITCHES 33 TD DEWPOINT TEMPERATURE 9 SW2 SWITCHES 34 RU RADIOMETER UP (IF AVAIL) 10 FL1 ERROR FLAGS 35 SW3 SWITCHES 11 FL2 ERROR FLAGS 36 UTAIL E/W VELOCITY OF TAIL 12 Xla1 LATITUDE (DEG) 37 VTAIL N/S VELOCITY OF TAIL 13 Xla2 LATITUDE (MIN) 38 WTAIL VERT VELOCITY OF TAIL 14 Ylo1 LONGITUDE (DEG) 39 15 Ylo2 LONGITUDE (MIN) 40 GA GEOPOTENTIAL ALT. (METER) 16 Ralt RADAR ALTITUDE (METER) 41 PALT PRESSURE ALT. (METER) 17 PS PRESSURE 42 DV D-VALUE 18 TA AMBIENT TEMPERATURE 43 HT HEIGHT STANDARD WORD SYM PARAMETER WORD SYM PARAMETER 19 TW1 DEWPOINT SENSOR 44 SP SURFACE PRESSURE 20 RD RADIOMETER DOWN 45 RH RELATIVE HUMIDITY 21 RS RADIOMETER SIDE 46 TV VIRTUAL TEMPERATURE 22 GS GROUND SPEED 47 WAS VERTICAL AIRSPEED 23 TS TRUE AIRSPEED 48 GM RATIO SPECIFIC HEATS 24 WGS VERT. GROUND SPEED 49 AMA MACH NUMBER 25 TK TRACK 50 DA DRIFT 51 GSX E/W GROUND SPEED 67 WSB AVERAGE WIND SPEED 52 GSY N/S GROUND SPEED 68 WDB AVERAGE WIND DIR 53 TX E/W TRUE AIRSPEED 69 AV1 VERTICAL ACCELEROMETER #1 54 TY N/S TRUE AIRSPEED 70 AV2 VERTICAL ACCELEROMETER #2 55 WX E/W WIND SPEED 71 WAC SEC. WIND AVERAGED OVER 56 WY N/S WIND SPEED 72 BT1 AXBT1 57 WZ VERTICAL WIND SPEED 73 BT2 AXBT2 58 WS WIND SPEED 74 BT3 AXBT3 59 WD WIND DIRECTION 75 NAV 1 = INE 1 2 = INE 2 60 EW SAT. VAPOR PRES 76 ITMP TOTAL TEMP USED: 1 OR 2 61 EE VAPOR PRESSURE 77-78 NOT USED 62 MR MIXING RATIO 79 KING LIQ. WATER VOLTAGE 80 DPJ's VERT GRND SPEED 63 PT POTENTIAL TEMP 81 DPJ's VERT AIR SPEED 64 ET EQUIVALENT POT.TEMP. 82 DPJ's VERT WIND 65 WXB E/W AVERAGE WIND 83-106 NOT USED 66 WYB N/S AVERAGE WIND PLEASE NOTE: THE WORDS ARE 16 BITS LONG THE RECORD LENGTH IS 106 WORDS THE BLOCK LENGTH IS 10 RECORDS...10 x 106 = 1060 WORDS WORDS 6 AND 7 ARE RECORD COUNTS TOTAL COUNT=RC1+RC2 WORDS 8,9,35 ARE EVENT SWITCHES HIGH ORDER BIT OF WORD 8 IS SWITCH 1 WORDS 78 THRU 106 ARE BLANK EXCEPT FOR HURRICANE TAPES WORDS 10 AND 11 ARE ERROR FLAGS FLAG 1 IS IN HIGH ORDER BIT OF WORD 10. IF THE BIT IS ON, A 1 INSTEAD OF A 0, THE DATA MAY BE IN ERROR. THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST ASSOCIATING AN ERROR FLAG TO A PARAMETER: FLAG 1 TIME FLAG 11 TRUE AIRSPEED 2 LATITUDE 12 VERTICAL SPEED 3 LONGITUDE 13 TRACK 4 RADAR ALT 14 HEADING 5 AMBIENT PRESS 15 PITCH 6 AMBIENT TEMP 16 ROLL 7 DEWPOINT TEMP 17 ATTACK ANGLE 8 DOWN RADIOMETER 18 SLIP ANGLE 9 SIDE RADIOMETER 19 LIQUID WATER 10 GROUND SPEED 20 DYNAMIC PRESS 3.2.6 TYPE 6 - TRAILER RECORD WORD PARAMETER ------------------------------------- 1. TYPE OF RECORD (6) 2. NUMBER OF WORDS IN RECORD (15) 3. NOT USED 4. TOTAL LENGTH OF FLIGHT IN SECONDS (UP TO 32677 SECONDS) 5. NUMBER OF SECONDS FLIGHT LASTS PAST 32677 SECONDS 6. HOUR TAKE OFF TIME 7. MINUTE " " " 8. SECOND " " " 9. HOUR BEGINNING OF REEL (BLOCK OUT TIME) 10. MINUTE " " " 11. SECOND " " " 12. HOUR END TIME OF REEL (BLOCK IN TIME) 13. MINUTE " " " " 14. SECOND " " " " 15. LAST REEL? (1=YES, 0=NO) 4.0 Quality Control This data is provided as-is. No quality control has been performed on this data by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support (UCAR/JOSS). 5.0 References All documentation were provided via personal communication from NOAA/AOC. For general information on the NOAA P-3 aircraft see the aoc.noaa.gov webpage at http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/aircraft_lockheed.htm