Background-Oriented Schlieren Imaging of Supersonic Aircraft in Flight

This paper describes the development and use of background-oriented schlieren imaging a full-scale supersonic jet in flight. A series flight tests was performed April 2011, October 2014, February 2015, December 2018 using flora desert floor corridor near Edwards Air Force Base as background. Flight planning designed based on camera resolution, mean size color predominant plants, coordination several aircraft. Image processing done with both cross correlation optical flow algorithms. The proved to be effective, vast majority passes target aircraft were successfully recorded. Results obtained that are most detailed imagery an date.