Marine Radar in a plane?

Wisconsin and Minn do not have support outside of urban areas. There was
not support in either Pierre or Rapid City, SD, or Salt Lake, UT.

"Snowbird" wrote in message
m...
Margy Natalie wrote in message
...
Jay Honeck wrote:
http://www.cheap*******software.net/
Interesting website (although I never could find any info about what
it
actually costs for the service).

Unfortunately it says "coverage in the center of the country is
spotty"...

I haven't found anyplace in eastern Iowa/IL/IN w/out coverage.
Haven't tried everywhere of course.

Kansas/Nebraska and some parts of Arkansas are without. It's
line-of-sight, depends upon how high you are.

It's cheap*******s! It doesn't cost anything!!! (Well, there is a
monthly
service for the palm).

Palm VIIx $60-$70 on ebay plus $10/month for cheapest plan.

You want to check the Palm website for coverage map and info on
plans. The cheap plan is available only w/ the Palm VIIx

There's a subscription service (weatherclip) which supposedly
provides more current radar.

I'd bank on CBAV + a sferics device over trying to make Marine
radar work for wx detection in a plane which is moving 10-15x
faster than a boat.

Cheers,
Sydney

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/

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Y7OZa.121718$uu5.17371@sccrnsc04...

Yesterday, as we were once again flying blindly toward unknown weather,
Mary
and I lamented the fact that we'll never have radar on board our
Pathfinder.
Too expensive to contemplate. Ditto with the "live uplink" stuff that's
just coming on the market.


Strikefinder or Stormscope would be far more useful than radar in a
single-engine plane.

My RDR-160 radar was the worst investment I ever made in my plane. CBAV is
far more useful, and certainly the newer portable and panel-mount datalink
systems seem to have the potential to beat CBAV.

Saying my radar has a range of 160 miles is a cruel joke; its range is
really only 40-50 miles, and even then it only works that far out if there
is a strong storm around. No piston airplane has the speed or altitude
capability to pentrate a line of thunderstorms and thus any piston plane can
get boxed in if a hole closes in from behind while trying to use radar to
find "holes" in storms.
--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Robert Moore" wrote in message
. 7...
to the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone...thunderstorm alley. I
have always found that avoiding the wet stuff is the best plan of

That plan may have been the best in airline flying, but not at piston
airplane altitudes.

How much experience do you have with radar in piston airplanes? In
particular, how much experience do you have with radar in piston
non-turbocharged airplanes such as Jay's?


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
...

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.

Every plane designed to fly in "serious weather" is a pressurized turboprop
or jet, which gives a whole lot more options for flying above weather than
any piston airplane.

At the altitudes and airspeds attainable by piston airplanes, spherics beats
radar hands-down.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote
How much experience do you have with radar in piston airplanes?
In particular, how much experience do you have with radar in
piston non-turbocharged airplanes such as Jay's?

I've done about three years in a PA-23 with RADAR but only
half-a-dozen flights in a C-210 with stormscope. I'll still
take the RADAR. I strongly suspect that the lack of adequate
training on RADAR operation compared to very little required
for stormscope accounts for much of the stormscope preference.
I've encountered few GA pilots who really understand the gain,
tilt, and contour controls.

Bob

In article ,
"Richard Kaplan" wrote:

At the altitudes and airspeds attainable by piston airplanes, spherics beats
radar hands-down.

There can still be significant turbulence where there isn't lightning.

--
Larry Fransson
Aviation software for Mac OS X!
http://www.subcritical.com

"Robert Moore" wrote in message
. 7...
I've encountered few GA pilots who really understand the gain,
tilt, and contour controls.

Is Archie Trammel's course sufficient for you for training?

Besides, assume perfect radar knowledge of use on a single-engine airplane
which therefore has only a 40-mile effective range.. do you think 40-mile
range on a radar is preferable to 100+ mile range on Stormscope?



--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

Kevin Horton wrote snip

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

Kev, For me it's been all Wx Radar. BE-18 had an old-timey (RCA I
believe?) set that was broken most all of the time. All of my other
experience has been with numerous different commercial sets in jets:
Bendix, Collins, RCA, etc. Lots of the guys I flew with at four
airlines however, flew Stormscope stuff in GA. None of them
has ever said anything good about it. In fact most of them say these
exact words when asked: "it's better than nothing." Unquote. After an
old hand like me teaches em how to set the gain manually and put a
little ground clutter out there with the tilt for insurance they don't
want to go back. Approaching a line? Use the tilt formula to
calculate if the cell is above your altitude or not. Doubt you can
tell much about vertical development with a Stormsope but then I've
never used one; been spoiled with good radar. The newer Collins sets
have auto-tilt and gggreat turb modes (magenta) but no one has been
able to explain to me how this feature works even in clear air. It's
amazing. And I'm a guy who used to fly into IAH every night in
occluded fronts, windshear, downbursts etc on an old Bendix green
screen (and I thought that was great.)

How's the weather?

We used to say: "what difference does it make? we're going anyway!"


snip
.. 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.

Yes indeed. This is called attenuation (actually the radar probably
does make it to the curved edges of the drops in your downburst or
strong cell, its just that the energy is absorbed or deflected and
never makes it back to the aircrafts' antenna receiver dish.) This
killed the crew and occupants of a NWA flight one night. They punched
into a level five I think we would call that today. This was a
famous accident in the industry and one night I was jumpseating on AWA
to JFK and we watched another flight below us try to do the same thing
over Kansas City. A huge discharge that blinded us for a second
convinced him to turn around. He kept arguing with ATC about how good
it looked straight ahead. We were all laughing our asses off when we
saw him do the 180!

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.

Radome cleanliness is important with big commercial units. I've lost
ability to paint targets due to extreme ice built up on the nose in
flight, and due to peeling paint. Peeling paint is the worst. You
constantly are dodging phantom cells that aren't there. We cringe at
the thought of no radar, but truthfully, a lot of the old guys flew
Connies without any and weren't concerned about it. They were
*always* in the weather they told me. Of course several disappeared
and were never found.

Ahhh ... constant turbulence that spills my coffie on my white shirt
and the faint smell of burning glycol in the packs and the
acrid odor of negative ions at high altitude, combined with bone-dry
eyeballs and radioactive, infectious, packages just inches from the
meal storage box.... makes me want to be scud-running in my little
airplane with a strike finder!

Stay away from Freddie Kilowatt!

pacplyer - out

"Richard Kaplan" wrote

Strikefinder or Stormscope would be far more useful than radar in a
single-engine plane.

My RDR-160 radar was the worst investment I ever made in my plane. CBAV is
far more useful, and certainly the newer portable and panel-mount datalink
systems seem to have the potential to beat CBAV.

Saying my radar has a range of 160 miles is a cruel joke; its range is
really only 40-50 miles, and even then it only works that far out if there
is a strong storm around. No piston airplane has the speed or altitude
capability to pentrate a line of thunderstorms and thus any piston plane can
get boxed in if a hole closes in from behind while trying to use radar to
find "holes" in storms.

I bet your Radar does have a 160 mile range. What altitude were you
at? Because of the curvature of the earth that set's going to
attenuate badly down low. You probably can't use the 160 range
effectively till you get up much higher like over 10,000AGL. Even
jets have to step the range down as they get lower. Bob's right:
using the set correctly is quite an art. Many copilots I've flown
with can't do it right. For some reason, radar training is kind of a
lost art.

Best Regards,

pacplyer