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Updated: Aug 2, 2026

Three-dimensional Particle Tracking Velocimetry for Turbulence Applications: Case of a Jet Flow
Published on: February 27, 2016
Fractal aircraft trajectories and nonclassical turbulent exponents
S Lovejoy1, D Schertzer, A F Tuck
1Physics, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada.
Abstract:
The dimension (D) of aircraft trajectories is fundamental in interpreting airborne data. To estimate D, we studied data from 18 trajectories of stratospheric aircraft flights 1600 km long taken during a "Mach cruise" (near constant Mach number) autopilot flight mode of the ER-2 research aircraft. Mach cruise implies correlated temperature and wind fluctuations so that DeltaZ approximately Deltax (H(z) ) where Z is the (fluctuating) vertical and x the horizontal coordinate of the aircraft. Over the range approximately 3-300 km , we found H(z) approximately 0.58+/-0.02 close to the theoretical 5/9=0.56 and implying D=1+ H(z) =14/9 , i.e., the trajectories are fractal. For distances <3 km aircraft inertia smooths the trajectories, for distances >300 km , D=1 again because of a rise of 1 m/km due to fuel consumption. In the fractal regime, the horizontal velocity and temperature exponents are close to the nonclassical value 1/2 (rather than 1/3 ). We discuss implications for aircraft measurements as well as for the structure of the atmosphere.
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