WXradar worth the extra money?

[maehhh]

Hi everbody
I hope you have some advice for me....


I have got the choice between 2 aircraft for hire. Both have pretty much the same performance and equipment except of only one of them having an WXradar... this one is 10€/hour more than no.2.

I've never used a WXradar yet nor do I know much about it... so I need your experience: is a WXradar worth the 10 bucks when flying VFR?

cheers
maehhh

[IO540]

It is airborne weather radar?

You do need to find out - there is quite a learning curve on the use of radar to penetrate hazardous weather. Do you have an IR?

More info needed.

[maehhh]

Alright I researched the POH and apparently it is not a real wx-radar - unlike the charter company quotes on their website - but a stormscope WX 1000+ (L3 Communications?)...

The aircraft is fully IFR, unfortunately I am not :p
I will hopefully start my IR training next November...


So same questions for the stormscope... :confused:


cheers

[Nearly There]

It might be a useful tool to have on board if you've a night rating & plan on flying at night VFR, but couldnt justify a reason for pootling about day time VFR

[Jetblu]

I have been using my WX 1000, especially with the weather last 2 weeks.
It displays all the electrical wx nicely or not so nice when it looks like a xmas tree :eek:

[FlyingStone]

In my opinion, you don't need weather radar or stormscope for Day VFR operations. As said, perhaps it would be smart to have it when weather isn't perfect for night VFR, although truth be told, I wouldn't push VFR at night with bad weather (such that would require significant avoidance with data from WX radar/stormscope), especially if you have no legal backup plan (IFR) or you aren't trained/current to fly on instruments only.

[Tinstaafl]

My view is that it's not worth the money for VFR. Day or night. During daytime use your eyeballs to stay out of the cloud. Nighttime use your eyeballs to stay out of the internally lit cloud. If it's night & you're worried about staying out of TS then you'll have a rather more difficult problem staying out of the non-TS clouds that will be present.

[IO540]

I fly with a WX500 stormscope. It works well for showing you where CBs are, in a certain stage of their development, but I don't think I would rely on it for avoidance of severe convective turbulence if flying in IMC. Sure it will show you a whole big TS but it misses an awful lot of individual stuff.

[IO540]

My stormscope is pretty good in showing stuff e,g, this (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/crete2/lgkr-dep4.jpg) shows up like this (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/crete2/lgkr-dep-wx500.jpg).

The dispersion in distance is a lot bigger than the dispersion in azimuth, which is what one would expect.

But, like I said, there is a lot of stuff like this (http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m74/peterh337/clouds1.jpg) which won't show up at all, and much TCU activity does not show up yet a flight through one could be extremely rough as well as hazardous in terms of icing.

Stormscope installations need to be done competently, to get the system to work. Many aren't.

[maehhh]

Alright thank you guys.

I will give it a go tomorrow evening + study the WX1000+ manual and then we will see if I like it or not :ok:

cheers

[MIKECR]

Its really not worth spending the money on. For day VFR flying you dont need it. You can near as damn it get by without it flying day IFR as well. Even flying an airliner 5 days a week, I could probably count on 2 fingers in a month the amount of time I get the benefit of using one. Save your money and put it towards flying the other aircraft.

[thing]

I once had an aircraft with a stormscope, it never showed me anything useful in a couple of hundred hours flying in it. All it did was show stuff towards the wingtips, especially on landing. Probably the strobes I suppose, and someone had a theory about static discharge on landing (probably untrue)

You are Jack Dee and ICM £5. :)

[nouseforaname]

flying vfr would say not essential as you will see most of the stuff your going into. Flying IFR it's essential piece of equipment until we can get xm weather in Europe.

[maehhh]

Your are sure right nouseforaname but what is with the stuff above me when flying under OVC? Can a Stormscope help me to avoid embedded TCU/CB or is flying VFR in those conditions still a no-go even with a WX1000?

[bookworm]

If you're flying visually below the bases, a stormscope is of little use. You avoid the worst of the convection visually, often by simply avoiding the dark bits (i.e. heaviest rain).