Marine Radar in a plane?

For some reason, radar training is kind of a
lost art.

Best Regards,

pacplyer


You mean you can't just turn it up until the crew chief smokes then back off a
little when doing ground checks?

When I worked on C-130s we'd occassionally get called out because the guy
couldn't see the sweep. We'd simply reach over his shoulder and turn up the
intensity.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

"Russell Kent" wrote in message ...
Snowbird wrote:

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.

You obviously haven't been in Margy & Ron's plane recently... :-)

Hey, my plane is plenty fast (well it will be once the engine gets fixed).

"JerryK" wrote in message ...
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.

Gee, I don't know what you term "urban". But it worked all the way from MKE to
OSH. Remember that you get a lot more range on the system a few thousand feet
up. The thing works much better in the air than on the ground.

Ron,

I tried in air all along the California to Wisconsin route going to and of
from OSH in late June. It worked on the ground in Oshkosh and Livermore,
but not at SLC or Rapid City and Pierre, SD. It did not work on the ground
15 miles outside of Oshkosh. In air, it work once by Minniapolis(sp?) and a
few times in the middle of Nevada. We were at alttitudes from 10,000 to
FL230.

On the good side, the XM radio worked the whole way. So as soon as they get
the kinks worked out of the XM system that might be the way to go.

jerry

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...

"JerryK" wrote in message
...
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.

Gee, I don't know what you term "urban". But it worked all the way from
MKE to
OSH. Remember that you get a lot more range on the system a few thousand
feet
up. The thing works much better in the air than on the ground.

"Montblack" wrote in message
.. .
("JerryK" wrote)
In air, it work once by Minniapolis(sp?)

Minneapolis (MSP)

Or better yet .....*punt*. Go with St. Paul (state capital).

Or St Cloud, St Peter or St James...

Don't all the people in Minnesota live in Minneapolis? Those that don't,
don't count. When I tell people I moved back to Minnesota, they ask me where
in Minneapolis. It's like everyone that lives in California is from LA...

Had to get use to hearing the 'Yah shuure, yuu bettcha' again...

-Greg Burkhart
Not MiniApples, MiniSoda...

The RDR-160 has a 160 mile setting but the beam is huge at anything over 40
miles. At 40 miles it is something like 40,000 feet tall. So anything in
the range is going to get hit and might return. So if you try to use tilt
for identifying anything much beyond 40 miles (next settings are 80, 120 and
160) you are painting with a very big brush, and with limited power
(compared to big iron). The joys of 10 or 12 inch antennas.

With that said it is still nice to know what is out there are 40 miles or
so. I just wish it painted a better picture further out.


"pac plyer" wrote in message
om...
"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

I am not an expert! But I have several friends, both of which are
ex-military pilots. One owns a C310 with radar and stormscope and the
other friend has a C210 with radar and stormscope.

Both agree that given a choice they would rather have the stormscope
over radar any day. They reason they said is that the stormscope
displays lightning and electrical disturbance and that is exact where
the worst convective air is. Radar only shows where water is. Simply put
convective air kills and rain doesn't.



Jay Honeck wrote:
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.

So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use? Checking
around on-line, it looks like you can get a pretty basic marine radar set up
for less than $2000 -- a tiny percentage of what "aviation" radar would
cost.

Anyone tried this in a home-built plane? What's the range of those units?
Installation?

Nick Funk wrote in message ...
I am not an expert! But I have several friends, both of which are
ex-military pilots. One owns a C310 with radar and stormscope and the
other friend has a C210 with radar and stormscope.

Both agree that given a choice they would rather have the stormscope
over radar any day. They reason they said is that the stormscope
displays lightning and electrical disturbance and that is exact where
the worst convective air is. Radar only shows where water is. Simply put
convective air kills and rain doesn't.


Kind of a funky argument Nick (sorry, couldn't resist. :-)
Interesting theory though, haven't heard that one before. The biggest
thing to avoid is the third stage of a thunderstorms' life: the mature
stage. Characterized by heavy precip (rain and hail) lightening,
strong up and downdrafts within the cell and strong surface winds etc.
Either means of detection will let you know that something's there.
But wx radar, in the right hands will yield more info about how tall
the cells are (and that's what's going to kill you, a powerfull cell
that towers up to say 30-50K in the northern hemisphere that for some
reason, has no excessive positive ions on the bottom of it for the
moment.) What I want to know when I'm crossing a line is: which is
the tallest set of cells so I can avoid that direction all together.
Getting "boxed in" happens to everybody sooner or later in X-C GA IFR,
and it would be nice to be able to know which choice is the lesser
evil and then go around the upwind side of the shortest cell if
possible.

After lots of guys get out of their units, we retrain them and they
become staunch advocates of full wx radar. I see it all the time.
Disclaimer: I have not used much GA radar so I am talking about a
three degree beam with a lot of juice and a big dish.

Keep the pointed end forward,

pacplyer

I don't have the luxuary of either radar or stormscope.
But I do have the "poor mans" stormscope, the old trusty ADF.
Always points where the lightning is.

Nick
PA28-180 'D'


Jay Honeck wrote:
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.

So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use? Checking
around on-line, it looks like you can get a pretty basic marine radar set up
for less than $2000 -- a tiny percentage of what "aviation" radar would
cost.

Anyone tried this in a home-built plane? What's the range of those units?
Installation?

Having flown through a lot of clouds with frequent lightning but minimal
radar returns and gotten a smooth ride, I disagree with your friends thesis.
Fifty thousand tons of water didn't get 40,000' in the air without a lot of
convection.


Mike
MU-2


"Nick Funk" wrote in message
...
I am not an expert! But I have several friends, both of which are
ex-military pilots. One owns a C310 with radar and stormscope and the
other friend has a C210 with radar and stormscope.

Both agree that given a choice they would rather have the stormscope
over radar any day. They reason they said is that the stormscope
displays lightning and electrical disturbance and that is exact where
the worst convective air is. Radar only shows where water is. Simply put
convective air kills and rain doesn't.



Jay Honeck wrote:
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.

So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use?
Checking
around on-line, it looks like you can get a pretty basic marine radar
set up
for less than $2000 -- a tiny percentage of what "aviation" radar would
cost.

Anyone tried this in a home-built plane? What's the range of those
units?
Installation?