Acceleration inside an aircraft in parabolic flight

Abstract

This work presents and analyzes the acceleration data inside an aircraft during a parabolic flight. The data used was obtained during flight from the aircraft's automatic recordings and from a portable data-logger with a built-in 3-axis accelerometer connected to a graphic calculator. The comparison of the accelerations obtained by the two methods shows a good agreement; however, during the higher accelerations about -18 m/s2, the discrepancies reach values of 10%. From the fit curves to the altitude data during each parabolic manoeuver performed by the aircraft, it was possible to estimate martian and lunar gravity, as well as the values of the acceleration of gravity during the microgravity moments. The analysis presented can also help improve understanding of the concepts of inertial forces and the equivalence between gravity and acceleration.