Prior to the first test flights of the HCR in February of 2013, computations were made to estimate the total errors in Doppler velocity taking into account reported or expected errors in the pod's inertial navigation system (INS) data, radar pointing accuracy and the variance due to the radar operation parameters. During the test flights a series of maneuvers were performed over flat land that were designed to enable the estimation of the antenna pointing errors following the method developed at the University of Wyoming for their Airborne W-band radar (Wyoming Cloud Radar; WCR). The antenna pointing errors can be accurately estimated by analyzing the measured Doppler velocity of the flat ground at various aircraft attitudes. Next, the HCR test flight data were corrected for platform motion and examined to determine if sufficient accuracy is obtainable with the current HCR radar and INS system at the typical speeds of HIAPER. The results indicate the standard deviation of Doppler velocity obtained with the current radar/INS system is quite low (< 0.2 m/s). The estimates of the errors made before the test flights match well the results from the test flight. The methods used to compute the errors, a description of the determination of pointing angle errors and the navigation correction procedure will be presented along with results from the test flights.
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