On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 17:09:41 -0700, pac plyer wrote:

(Ross Oliver) wrote
I have always heard that a lightning detector such as StrikeFinder or
Stormscope works just as well as radar for thunderstorm avoidance,

You've heard way wrong.

Bob Moore
ATP B-727 B-707 L-188
FI ASE/IA
USN S-2F P-2V B-3B
PanAm (retired)

Man you said it Bob. Twice out in the South Pacific with convective wx,
ops tried to get me to fly the trip without any radar. My response was
the same both times: If you can't fix it, just give us a call at the
hotel, cuz that's were we'll be until you break out the bucks to go buy
one from Singapore Airlines or somebody and fly it on over here. (some
of those Equatorial boomers go up to 70,000 ft) I'm just too ****ing
cute to die anymore.

pacplyer
ex-thunderstorm nafod

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/