sferics vs Nexrad

The sferics requires a lot of interpretation
- and few pilots have the skill set to use it to maximum effect.

What are the kinds of things involved in this interpretation? Could you
give me a few examples?

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:
The sferics requires a lot of interpretation
- and few pilots have the skill set to use it to maximum effect.

What are the kinds of things involved in this interpretation? Could you
give me a few examples?

I can give you individual examples, but that won't give you a useful
understanding of how to do it.

Example:

The distance to the strikes is very approximate - however, you can
estimate the distance quite accurately by monitoring how long it takes
a radial to spread. For example: You're doing 90 kts, and in 5
minutes the dots go from showing up at your 1 o'clock position to your
1:30 (15 degree shift). That's 3 degrees per minute, and you're doing
1.5 miles per minute, so the distance from you to the cell is actually
30 miles. That can be pretty imprtant if you are expecting a right
turn sometime soon.

Example:

Not all strikes are created equal. The stormscope sees static
discharges, of which lightning is just one flavor. Generally,
lightning strikes will show as more than one dot, all along one radial
line. With time, you get pretty good at separating out real convective
activity from the light turbulence.

Example:

When approaching a line perpendicularly, the point just ahead of you
will look like the weakest spot. This is because that radial takes the
shortest path through the line. When approaching, you need to make
some heading changes to see where the real weak spots are, by comparing
the way the screen populates with dots.

To properly describe all the issues involved would take a book - or at
least a long article.

Michael

I can give you individual examples

Thanks, they were illustriative.

To properly describe all the issues involved would take a book - or at
least a long article.

It would probably be a =very= useful long article. You could post it as
a series. In fact, I wonder if Jay's website might be a good place to
put such things...

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

In article ,
Peter wrote:
NEXRAD can be a couple minutes old, or up to several minutes old
(assuming you receive the 5 minute updates.) It isn't "at least seven
minutes old." However, you have no idea HOW old it is, so I certainly
wouldn't use it to navigate around thunderstorms unless I was VMC.

In that case, why have it at all. In VMC, one doesn't need radar to
avoid the stuff.


Because you have no idea what's up ahead, and whether or not you need to
divert now, or will be able to complete your flight.


JKG

There are several ways of getting the Nexrad. But the best way is how
Garmin is doing it, using the XMradio satellite radio channel. It is
quite good. Just as in GPS, satellites are a superior way for ground
and airbased vehicles to get their position data and any other data
(highway traffic for cars etc) they need. At any rate the XMradio is a
great solution for this sort of thing.

Peter,

What is the worldwide coverage like with XM?


Nil. There are two geostationary satellites covering the western and
eastern US, aptly named "Rock" and "Roll" (XM does music radio,
primarily). The frequencies used are allocated to military/public
services in much of Europe, for example, so don't hold your breath on
an international expansion.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Peter,

Thomas, are you aware of any service which can be used for airborne
data - other than the full TCP/IP thing from say Iridium?

Inmarsat offers a service, I think. Connexion by Boeing works with
Inmarsat, too. And Iridium, as you say.

I believe there is a data service run by Ericsson, on the back of
their GSM network or something like that.

GSM wouldn't work. The antennas don't receive from higher altitudes
(above, say, 3000 feet).


--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Thomas, are you aware of any service which can be used for airborne
data - other than the full TCP/IP thing from say Iridium?

Inmarsat offers a service, I think. Connexion by Boeing works with
Inmarsat, too. And Iridium, as you say.

Article in todays Wall Street Journal.... Boeing is dumping the
Connexion business.

Boeing to Shutter Connexion
As Web Service Failed to Catch On
By J. LYNN LUNSFORD
August 18, 2006
In a setback for efforts to make Internet service widely available to
air travelers, Boeing Co. threw in the towel on its Connexion in-flight
Internet venture, saying it plans to shut down the unprofitable
six-year-old service by year's end.
Boeing acknowledged in June that it was in talks with
commercial-satellite operators and other potential suitors, but it also
hinted strongly that it might abandon the business altogether. The
satellite operators concluded that there was too much risk in buying
Connexion outright, a person familiar with the situation said.

In a statement, Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Jim McNerney said:
"Regrettably, the market for this service has not materialized as had
been expected. We believe this decision best balances the long-term
interests of all parties with a stake in Connexion by Boeing."
Boeing's experience with Connexion underscores how difficult it has been
for companies to find a profitable way to keep passengers connected to
the ground, even though such ability would enable business travelers to
be more productive. Many airlines that might have been customers appear
to be leaning toward a much-cheaper technology with less capacity that
relies on traditional cellular networks, but even those fledgling
projects aren't without financial and technical challenges.
Boeing said it plans to take a charge of as much as $320 million, or 26
cents a share, to cover the costs of shutting the service. About $290
million of that will be taken in the third quarter and the balance in
the fourth. The company previously estimated that the potential charge
could be as much as $350 million. Beginning next year, the company said,
it expects a benefit of about 15 cents a share to reflect the
discontinued investment in Connexion.
The U.S. unit of Luxembourg's SES Global SA -- a supplier of satellite
capacity for Connexion -- confirmed that it had been in discussions with
Boeing about possibly taking over the service, but after months of
discussions no agreement was reached. Monica Morgan, a spokeswoman for
the unit, declined to elaborate.
Annual revenue for the unit from Boeing's onboard Internet service is
less than $25 million, according to industry officials. But Ms. Morgan
said SES also has booked about $300 million in its order backlog related
to Connexion. She said Boeing and SES are in talks about phasing out the
service, and what penalties Boeing will have to pay for canceling
long-term leases of satellite capacity. SES declined to discuss details
of those talks.
Boeing said it expected that most of the 560 employees of Connexion
would be moved to jobs within Boeing. It said it would work with
customers to begin an orderly shutdown of the service. In addition to a
handful of international airlines, Connexion is used on several U.S.
government planes, including Air Force One. A company spokesman said
that Boeing plans to honor its contracts with the government until a
solution can be worked out.
The service is available on select long-haul flights by a handful of
airlines, including Lufthansa, Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines and
others. A Boeing spokesman said that even on those flights, the usage
rate among passengers was "in the low single digits." Boeing has never
said how much it invested in Connexion, but people familiar with the
venture put the figure at about $1 billion.
Mr. McNerney, who took over as chairman, president and chief executive
of Boeing just over a year ago, made it clear that he wasn't as enamored
as his predecessors were with Boeing's foray outside of its core
businesses. This year, Mr. McNerney gave the first outward signal that
changes were afoot when he removed the Connexion unit from reporting
directly to his office and put it under the oversight of the company's
director of mergers and acquisitions.
--Andy Pasztor contributed to this article.

Article in todays Wall Street Journal.... Boeing is dumping the
Connexion business.

IF we won't be able to carry laptops and cellphones and PDAs in the
cabin, Connexion is toast anyway.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.