Well, the original question was about a radar for a Piper PA-28-235
Pathfinder. That is not an aircraft designed to fly in serious weather.

I'm not sure there are any STCs to put a radar on the plane, even if the
money was available. The originally discussed marine radar is a
non-starter, I think, as it is designed to see land, not water. So that
leaves StormScope technology, or the new datalink stuff, or nothing.
Given those choices, I would try the StormScope type systems. The
datalink stuff might be worth a look, if you expected to always be flying
in areas where there is coverage.

Kevin Horton RV-8 (finishing kit)
Ottawa, Canada
http://go.phpwebhosting.com/~khorton/rv8/

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 19:35:21 -0700, Mike Rapoport wrote:

Well, basically, every plane designed to fly in serious weather has
radar, not spherics. With radar you see the problem, with spherics you
hear it. With radar you know the exact bearing and distance to the
target. With sperics you have a pretty good idea where the target is
and some idea of how far away it is. I agree that radar with a small
antenna is pretty limited.

Mike
MU-2


"Kevin Horton" wrote in message
news

pacflyer - which aircraft do you have your StormScope or StrikeFinder
time on? Have you flown any GA radars?

I've flown both StormScopes and WX radar (I don't have any time on
cheap GA radar though), and one of my current aircraft actually has
both. You need to understand that the two technologies have different
limitations. Radar does a good job of finding water, and pretty much
any thunderstorm worth worrying about will be dumping lots of water.
But, you need to understand how to work the tilt knob, and you need to
understand that just because that glob of red looks pretty thin doesn't
mean it is a good place to try to punch through. If the water is
coming down strong enough, it will stop the radar from seeing anything
further out in that direction. So you may see a glob of red, with green
and black on the other side, but it is only green or black because the
radar signal isn't punching through to there.

The StormScope stuff, in theory, should keep you out of the really bad
stuff, as any CB should be producing lightening. It won't keep you out
of TCUs, but they shouldn't kill you, although they may scare the hell
out of you. I've seen quite a bit of variation in performance on
different StormScope installations. One aircraft I flew (TB-21) had a
StormScope installation that worked extremely well. The C550s that I
fly with StormScope seem to work much less well. I suspect the
technology is very sensitive to where the antenna is located, how well
everything is grounded, and how much electrical noise the aircraft
produces. YMMV.

With weather radar, I suspect there is probably less installation to
installation difference in performance, for the same model unit and
same antenna. Obviously more expensive units with bigger antennae and
more power will work better than the cheaper GA stuff.

If I was spending my money, I'd take a StormScope over a cheap radar.
But I would do a lot of testing in VMC with CBs in the area to satisfy
myself that it was working properly before I went into clouds with it.
If I was spending my boss's money, I'd take an expensive radar over a
StormScope.

--
Kevin Horton RV-8 (finishing kit) Ottawa, Canada
http://go.phpwebhosting.com/~khorton/rv8/