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NASA NTRS2002

Phenomena Associated with EIT Waves

We discuss phenomena associated with 'EIT Wave' transients. These phenomena include coronal mass ejections, flares, EUV/SXR dimmings, chromospheric waves, Moreton waves, solar energetic particle events, energetic electron events, and radio signatures. Although the occurrence of many phenomena correlate with the appearance of EIT waves, it is difficult to infer which associations are causal. The presentation will include a discussion of correlation surveys of these phenomena.

Thompson, B. J.↗
NASA NTRS2002

The Three-Dimensional EIT Wave

An EIT wave is an impulsive disturbance which has been observed in the EUV, Soft X-ray and white light corona, with corresponding observations in the chromosphere. The effects of these disturbances can be observed across the entire solar disk of the Sun, and throughout the inner heliosphere as well. However, the picture is not complete; observations alone do not establish a complete understanding of the nature of this three-dimensional phenomenon. A number of associated phenomena have been documented, though in most cases causality has not determined. Additionally, it is unclear which factors govern the impulse's ability to affect regions of the corona and heliosphere. We discuss the various observations and the models which provided links between the associated phenomena.

Thompson, B. J.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Technical Challenges in the Development of a NASA Synthetic Vision System Concept

Within NASA's Aviation Safety Program, the Synthetic Vision Systems Project is developing display system concepts to improve pilot terrain/situation awareness by providing a perspective synthetic view of the outside world through an on-board database driven by precise aircraft positioning information updating via Global Positioning System-based data. This work is aimed at eliminating visibility-induced errors and low visibility conditions as a causal factor to civil aircraft accidents, as well as replicating the operational benefits of clear day flight operations regardless of the actual outside visibility condition. Synthetic vision research and development activities at NASA Langley Research Center are focused around a series of ground simulation and flight test experiments designed to evaluate, investigate, and assess the technology which can lead to operational and certified synthetic vision systems. The technical challenges that have been encountered and that are anticipated in this research and development activity are summarized.

Bailey, Randall E.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Accomplishments of the Abrupt Wing Stall (AWS) Program and Future Research Requirements

The Abrupt Wing Stall (AWS) Program has addressed the problem of uncommanded lateral motions, such as wing drop and wing rock, at transonic speeds. The genesis of this Program was the experience of the F/A-1 8E/F Program in the late 1990's, when wing drop was discovered in the heart of the maneuver envelope for the pre-production aircraft. While the F/A-1 8E/F problem was subsequently corrected by a leading-edge flap scheduling change and the addition of a porous door to the wing fold fairing, the AWS Program was initiated as a national response to the lack of technology readiness available at the time of the F/A-18E/F Development Program. The AWS Program objectives were to define causal factors for the F/A-18E/F experience, to gain insights into the flow physics associated with wing drop, and to develop methods and analytical tools so that future programs could identify this type of problem before going to flight test. The paper reviews, for the major goals of the AWS Program, the status of the technology before the

Hall, Robert M.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Accomplishments of the Abrupt Wing Stall (AWS) Program and Future Research Requirements

The Abrupt Wing Stall (AWS) Program has addressed the problem of uncommanded lateral motions, such as wing drop and wing rock, at transonic speeds. The genesis of this Program was the experience of the F/A-18E/F Program in the late 199O's, when wing drop was discovered in the heart of the maneuver envelope for the pre-production aircraft. While the F/A-18E/F problem was subsequently corrected by a leading-edge flap scheduling change and the addition of a porous door to the wing fold fairing, the AWS Program was initiated as a national response to the lack of technology readiness available at the time of the F/A-18E/F Development Program. The AWS Program objectives were to define causal factors for the F/A-18E/F experience, to gain insights into the flow physics associated with wing drop, and to develop methods and analytical tools so that future programs could identify this type of problem before going to flight test. The paper reviews, for the major goals of the AWS Program, the status of the technology before the program began, the program objectives, accomplishments, and impacts. Lessons learned are presented for the benefit of future programs that must assess whether a vehicle will have uncommanded lateral motions before going to flight test. Finally, recommended future research needs are presented in light of the AWS Program experience.

Hall, Robert M.↗
NASA NTRS2002

A Discontinuous Galerkin Discretization of the Eikonal Equation on Curved Piecewise Isoparametric Triangulated Manifolds

This viewgraph presentation provides information on optimizing the travel distance between two points on a curved surface. The presentation addresses the single source shortest path problem, fast algorithms for estimating the eikonal equation, fast schemes and barrier theorems, and the discontinuous Galerkin method, including hyperbolic causality, finite element method, scalars, and marching the discontinuous Galerkin Eikonal approximation.

Barth, TIm↗
NASA NTRS2003

Evidence for Filamentary Jet Structure: The Light Curve of GRB 011211

We report on the discovery of the optical afterglow of the X-ray rich, long-duration gamma-ray burst GRB 011211, and the oscillatory behavior present in its optical and X-ray afterglow light curve. The time scale of the fluctuations, -1 hour, is much smaller than the time of the observations, -12 hours from the onset of the gamma-ray burst. The character and strength of the fluctuations visible in the optical data are unprecedented, and are inconsistent with causally connected variations in the emission of a symmetric, relativistic blast wave. Moreover, the differential time lag between the short-term variations in X-ray and optical energies suggests they do not arise from the same emitting region. Such variability may imply that local spherical symmetry is broken because the energy content across the jet-emitting surface is not uniform, indicating the detection of a small scale substructure within the jet itself.

Jakobsson, P.↗
NASA NTRS2003

The Role of Instability Waves in Predicting Jet Noise

Debate over whether linear instability waves play a role in the prediction of jet noise has been going on for many years. Parallel mean flow models, such as the one proposed by Lilley, usually neglect these waves because they cause the solution to become infinite. The present paper solves the true non-parallel acoustic equations for a two-dimensional shear layer by using a vector Greens function and assuming small mean flow spread rate. The results show that linear instability waves must be accounted for in order to construct a proper causal solution to the problem.

Goldstein, Marvin E.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Phenomena Associated With EIT Waves

We discuss phenomena associated with "EIT Wave" transients. These phenomena include coronal mass ejections, flares, EUV/SXR dimmings, chromospheric waves, Moreton waves, solar energetic particle events, energetic electron events, and radio signatures. Although the occurrence of many phenomena correlate with the appearance of EIT waves, it is difficult to mfer which associations are causal. The presentation will include a discussion of correlation surveys of these phenomena.

Thompson, B. J.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Synthetic Vision CFIT Experiments for GA and Commercial Aircraft: "A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Lives"

Because restricted visibility has been implicated in the majority of commercial and general aviation accidents, solutions will need to focus on how to enhance safety during instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). The NASA Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) project is developing technologies to help achieve these goals through the synthetic presentation of how the outside world would look to the pilot if vision were not reduced. The potential safety outcome would be a significant reduction in several accident categories, such as controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT), that have restricted visibility as a causal factor. The paper describes two experiments that demonstrated the efficacy of synthetic vision technology to prevent CFIT accidents for both general aviation and commercial aircraft.

Prinzel, Lawrence J., III↗
NASA NTRS2003

Synthetic Vision Enhances Situation Awareness and RNP Capabilities for Terrain-Challenged Approaches

The Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) Project of Aviation Safety Program is striving to eliminate poor visibility as a causal factor in aircraft accidents as well as enhance operational capabilities of all aircraft through the display of computer generated imagery derived from an onboard database of terrain, obstacle, and airport information. To achieve these objectives, NASA 757 flight test research was conducted at the Eagle-Vail, Colorado airport to evaluate three SVS display types (Head-Up Display, Head-Down Size A, Head-Down Size X) and two terrain texture methods (photo-realistic, generic) in comparison to the simulated Baseline Boeing-757 Electronic Attitude Direction Indicator and Navigation / Terrain Awareness and Warning System displays. These independent variables were evaluated for situation awareness, path error, and workload while making approaches to Runway 25 and 07 and during simulated engine-out Cottonwood 2 and KREMM departures. The results of the experiment showed significantly improved situation awareness, performance, and workload for SVS concepts compared to the Baseline displays and confirmed the retrofit capability of the Head-Up Display and Size A SVS concepts. The research also demonstrated that the pathway and pursuit guidance used within the SVS concepts achieved required navigation performance (RNP) criteria.

Kramer, Lynda J.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Flight Test Evaluation of Synthetic Vision Concepts at a Terrain Challenged Airport

NASA's Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) Project is striving to eliminate poor visibility as a causal factor in aircraft accidents as well as enhance operational capabilities of all aircraft through the display of computer generated imagery derived from an onboard database of terrain, obstacle, and airport information. To achieve these objectives, NASA 757 flight test research was conducted at the Eagle-Vail, Colorado airport to evaluate three SVS display types (Head-up Display, Head-Down Size A, Head-Down Size X) and two terrain texture methods (photo-realistic, generic) in comparison to the simulated Baseline Boeing-757 Electronic Attitude Direction Indicator and Navigation/Terrain Awareness and Warning System displays. The results of the experiment showed significantly improved situation awareness, performance, and workload for SVS concepts compared to the Baseline displays and confirmed the retrofit capability of the Head-Up Display and Size A SVS concepts. The research also demonstrated that the tunnel guidance display concept used within the SVS concepts achieved required navigation performance (RNP) criteria.

Kramer, Lynda J.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Flight Simulator Evaluation of Display Media Devices for Synthetic Vision Concepts

The Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) Project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Aviation Safety Program (AvSP) is striving to eliminate poor visibility as a causal factor in aircraft accidents as well as enhance operational capabilities of all aircraft. To accomplish these safety and capacity improvements, the SVS concept is designed to provide a clear view of the world around the aircraft through the display of computer-generated imagery derived from an onboard database of terrain, obstacle, and airport information. Display media devices with which to implement SVS technology that have been evaluated so far within the Project include fixed field of view head up displays and head down Primary Flight Displays with pilot-selectable field of view. A simulation experiment was conducted comparing these display devices to a fixed field of view, unlimited field of regard, full color Helmet-Mounted Display system. Subject pilots flew a visual circling maneuver in IMC at a terrain-challenged airport. The data collected for this experiment is compared to past SVS research studies.

Arthur, J. J., III↗
NASA NTRS2001

Multiwavelength Monitoring of Active Galactic Nuclei

By intensive monitoring of AGN variability over a large range in wavelength, we can probe the structure and physics of active galactic nuclei on microarcsecond angular scales. For example, multi-wavelength variability data allow us (a) to establish causal relationships between variations in different wavebands, and thus determine which physical processes are primary and which spectral changes are induced by variations at other wavelengths, and (b) through reverberation mapping of the UV/optical emission lines, to determine the structure and kinematics of the line-emitting region, and thus accurately determine the central masses in AGNs. Multiwavelength monitoring is resource-intensive, and is difficult to implement with general-purpose facilities. As a result, virtually all programs undertaken to date have been either sparsely sampled, or short in duration, or both. The potentially high return on this type of investigation, however, argues for dedicated facilities for multiwavelength monitoring programs.

Peterson, Bradley M.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Pathway Design Effects on Synthetic Vision Head-Up Displays

NASA s Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) project is developing technologies with practical applications that will eliminate low visibility conditions as a causal factor to civil aircraft accidents while replicating the operational benefits of clear day flight operations, regardless of the actual outside visibility condition. A major thrust of the SVS project involves the development/demonstration of affordable, certifiable display configurations that provide intuitive out-the-window terrain and obstacle information with advanced pathway guidance for transport aircraft. This experiment evaluated the influence of different tunnel and guidance concepts upon pilot situation awareness (SA), mental workload, and flight path tracking performance for Synthetic Vision display concepts using a Head-Up Display (HUD). Two tunnel formats (dynamic, minimal) were evaluated against a baseline condition (no tunnel) during simulated IMC approaches to Reno-Tahoe International airport. Two guidance cues (tadpole, follow-me aircraft) were also evaluated to assess their influence on the tunnel formats. Results indicated that the presence of a tunnel on an SVS HUD had no effect on flight path performance but that it did have significant effects on pilot SA and mental workload. The dynamic tunnel concept with the follow-me aircraft guidance symbol produced the lowest workload and provided the highest SA among the tunnel concepts evaluated.

Kramer, Lynda J.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Flynn Creek Impact Structure: New Insights from Breccias, Melt Features, Shatter Cones, and Remote Sensing

The Flynn Creek impact structure is located in Tennessee, USA (36 deg.17 min.N, 85 deg.40 min.W). The structure was first mapped as a crypto-volcanic by Wilson and Born in 1936 [1]. Although they did not properly identify the stratigraphy within the crater or the causal mechanism, they did correctly define the horizontal extent of the crater. More detailed surface and subsurface research by Roddy (1979) accurately described the crater as being an impact structure with a diameter of 3.8 km. It formed around 360 Ma, which corresponds to the interval between the deposition of the Nashville Group and the Chattanooga Shale. Although there is limited rock outcrop in the area, there are exposed surface faults, folds, and large outcrops of impact breccia within the crater.

Evenick, J. C.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Evidence for Doppler-Shifted Iron Emission Lines in Black Hole Candidate 4U 1630-47

We report the first detection of a pair of correlated the X-ray spectrum of black hole candidate 4U 1630-47 outburst, based on Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) emission lines in during its 1996 observations of the source. At the peak plateau of the outburst, the emission lines are detected, centered mostly at approx. 5.7 and approx. 7.7 keV, respectively, while the line energies exhibit random variability approx. 5%. Interestingly, the lines move in a concerted manner to keep their separation roughly constant. The lines also vary greatly in strength, but with the lower energy line always much stronger than the higher energy one. The measured equivalent width ranges from approx. 50 to approx. 270 eV for the former, and from insignificant detection to approx. 140 eV for the latter; the two are reasonably correlated. The correlation between the lines implies a causal connection; perhaps they share a common origin. Both lines may arise from a single K & alpha; line of highly ionized iron that is Doppler shifted either in a Keplerian accretion disk or in a bipolar outflow or even both. In both scenarios, a change in the line energy might simply reflect a change in the ionization state of line-emitting matter. We discuss the implication of the results and also raise some questions about such interpretations.

Cui, Wei↗
NASA NTRS2004

Mesosphere-Stratosphere Coupling: Implications for Climate Variability and Trends

A key aspect of this project is the establishment of a causal link from circulation anomalies in the lower mesosphere and stratopause region downward through the stratosphere to the troposphere. The observational link for stratospheric sudden warmings and surface climate is fairly clear. However, our understanding of the dynamics is incomplete. We have been making significant progress in the area of dynamical mechanisms by which circulation anomalies in the stratosphere affect the troposphere. We are trying to understand the details and sequence of events that occur when a middle atmosphere (wind) anomaly propagates downward to near the tropopause. The wind anomaly could be caused by a warming or solar variations in the low-latitude stratopause region, or could have other causes. The observations show a picture that is consistent with a circulation anomaly that descends to the tropopause region, and can be detected as low as the mid-troposphere. Processes near the stratopause in the tropics appear to be important precursors to the wintertime development of the northern polar vortex. This may affect significantly our understanding of the process by which low-latitude wind anomalies in the low mesosphere and upper stratosphere evolve through the winter and affect the polar vortex.

Baldwin, Mark P.↗