The measurement of electromagnetic fields and related quantities in a lightning environment is a challenging problem, especially at high frequencies and/or in the immediate vicinity of the lightning arcs and corona. This paper reviews the techniques for accomplishing such measurements in these regimes with examples. These sensors are often the same as for the nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP), but significant differences also appear.
Recent in-flight, direct-strike lightning research, using a NASA F-106B aircraft, is reviewed. An instrumentation system which records the rates of change of electric and magnetic flux density at several locations on the aircraft and rate of change of strike current to the boom is described. The measurement parameters are the rate of change of electric flux density over a range of 50 A/m 2 , rate of change of magnetic flux density over a range of 20,000 T/s, and rate of change of strike current over a range of 100 kA/>s. The isolated and shielded instrumentation system employs high-sample-rate digital transient recorders with augmented memory capacity and a wide-band analog recorder for data acquisition and recording. The data obtained during the 1980 flight test program are presented, and the data significance is discussed.
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