"Are you worried about all those non-green colors on the radar?"

Peter R. wrote:

Sam Spade wrote:


They are human beings, and their jobs are being outsourced.


Spare me the "it's not their fault" argument. A true professional is able
to keep his/her personal issues from interfering with the job, especially
if this job has some influence on the safety of others.


No argument from me. That is why the airlines and the pros never use
FSS. If you want professional service you pay for it.

Sam Spade wrote:

No argument from me. That is why the airlines and the pros never use
FSS. If you want professional service you pay for it.

I thought we were paying for this service, no? Isn't that where a portion
of our 100LL taxes are being directed?

However, I see your point: We get what we pay for.

--
Peter

Peter R. wrote:

Sam Spade wrote:


No argument from me. That is why the airlines and the pros never use
FSS. If you want professional service you pay for it.


I thought we were paying for this service, no? Isn't that where a portion
of our 100LL taxes are being directed?

However, I see your point: We get what we pay for.


Right, you're not paying very much for that service.

FSS is used primarily by light aircraft pilots. If user fees come about
I suspect the FSS will eventually fold.

Now I am not a meteorologist by trade or university, but I am pretty
confident that the level three and higher returns showing up on radar ahead
of this cold front today were not falling from a stratus layer.

Don't be so confident. I recall one trip from Destin back to Houston
where I nearly drove a controller who was just as certain as you are
into a conniption fit. It so happened he was wrong too.

I was flying my PA-30, which doesn't have RADAR of any sort (not even
the XM kind) but does have a good Stormscope. I had already deviated
North to avoid an area of convection (the screen was lit up) but headed
West once I was North of the activity. The controller almost did not
allow me to turn West - he insisted I would be flying through an area
of Level II and III returns, with small areas of IV (that's red) in an
area covered by a convective SIGMET. And he was right. However, all
the actual convective activity was now South of me. I flew through
some moderate and even heavy rain - with no turbulence to speak of.
Nothing worse than occasional light chop. I flew in and between
stratus layers. The controller was checking on me every few minutes,
asking if I needed to deviate - because all he had was the RADAR and
the SIGMET.

There really are times when you can have areas of yellow and red, in
conditions that look like they favor convective activity, and in fact
right next to convective activity, which are nonetheless stratiform and
quite comfortable to penetrate. The key is knowing that convection is
not there. Now how one is to know that without a good 'spherics device
is beyond me.

Michael

Michael wrote:

There really are times when you can have areas of yellow and red, in
conditions that look like they favor convective activity, and in fact
right next to convective activity, which are nonetheless stratiform and
quite comfortable to penetrate. The key is knowing that convection is
not there. Now how one is to know that without a good 'spherics device
is beyond me.

While I do see your point (and always have sided with you on your recurring
theme of getting proper utility out of an aircraft), this particular flight
was a return leg of an Angel Flight mission; it was not a mission critical
freight dog flight. I certainly don't see any harm in erring on the side
of caution in wanting to stay clear of level three and higher returns,
especially when there is an advancing cold front in the area.

Whether these particular returns contained destructive turbulence or not
was not something I wanted to test. All of the weather conditions that day
suggested they could be convective and that was enough for me.

Additionally, my point in starting this thread was to question whether it
is really the FSS specialist's job to imply that I am being too
conservative when asking about the colorful radar returns? IMO, absolutely
not.

By the way, I recall one flight a couple of Septembers ago where the red
returns were due to a local radar being set too sensitive for the falling
*wet snow*. In this particular briefing, the FSS specialist was very good.
He didn't imply that I was too concerned about seeing red. Instead, he
investigated my concerns by pulling up the metars from the area, spotted
snow being reported, then concluding that it was a radar sensitivity issue,
not convective activity, that was causing the reds.

--
Peter

"Michael" wrote:

There really are times when you can have areas of yellow and red, in
conditions that look like they favor convective activity, and in fact
right next to convective activity, which are nonetheless stratiform and
quite comfortable to penetrate. The key is knowing that convection is
not there. Now how one is to know that without a good 'spherics device
is beyond me.

WxWorx.

Red precip without lightning: http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic2.jpg

Red precip with lightning: http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic8.jpg

http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic9.jpg

It is not real time like 'spherics, but it is timely enough to have tactical
value. I have seen it accurately show lightning where there was not yet any
precip. depicted. I've used it--coincidentally in the Destin area--to
penetrate weather that ATC had warned me about. The little inverted
triangles are METARs that are very useful in verifying the nature of NEXRAD
returns.

Both have their limitations. The optimum situation would be to have
'spherics *and* satellite. Having to choose, I'll take the XM weather
because it does so much more.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

Dan Luke wrote:

WxWorx.

Red precip without lightning: http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic2.jpg

Red precip with lightning: http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic8.jpg

Nice.

WSI downlinked weather displayed on a Garmin MX20 moving map: Will never
display the lightning data now offered by WSI, thanks to the feud between
these two companies.

Between WSI and TIS, I don't know how many more technological dead-ends I
can choose in one lifetime.

--
Peter

Peter R. wrote:
Dan Luke wrote:


WxWorx.

Red precip without lightning: http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic2.jpg

Red precip with lightning: http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic8.jpg


Nice.

WSI downlinked weather displayed on a Garmin MX20 moving map: Will never
display the lightning data now offered by WSI, thanks to the feud between
these two companies.

Between WSI and TIS, I don't know how many more technological dead-ends I
can choose in one lifetime.


How about VHS and Beta Max all over again with the emerging Hi Def DVD
formats.

These folks love to hate each other and, in the process, screw the
consumer over until there is no tomorrow.

"Sam Spade" wrote:

Between WSI and TIS, I don't know how many more technological dead-ends I
can choose in one lifetime.


How about VHS and Beta Max all over again with the emerging Hi Def DVD
formats.

These folks love to hate each other and, in the process, screw the
consumer over until there is no tomorrow.

There is a real chance consumers will react to both with a big yawn.

Home videotape recording was a revolutionary product that everyone wanted.
On the other hand, the new DVD formats offer so small an increment in
display quality over a good 480-P player on an HDTV screen, I think few
people will care enough to upgrade. At least they can afford to wait and
see which new format survives.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

"Peter R." wrote:

Dan Luke wrote:

WxWorx.

Red precip without lightning:
http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic2.jpg

Red precip with lightning: http://www.seaerospace.com/garmin/396pic8.jpg

Nice.

WSI downlinked weather displayed on a Garmin MX20 moving map: Will never
display the lightning data now offered by WSI, thanks to the feud between
these two companies.

Ouch. This is bad for all of us, as there is virtually no competition for
WxWorx/Garmin.

--
Dan

"The future has actually been here for a while, it's just not readily
available to everyone."
- some guy at MIT