iPad for weather radar display
 

I just read about an airline in the US that provides their pilots live weather radar(versus cached) uplinks for tactical planning in flight based on weather beyond the aircraft's own radar range.

It got me thinking that I could use my own ipad and my airline's internet to get similar on rare occasion. Has anyone tried this before?

I've seen it in action on 2 carriers here. It's an amazing tool.

Very strict rules apply. I know you're not under FAA rules, but I have a hunch that that would violate the PED policy unless you have an exemption to do so. I imagine your CAA would take a similar view.

You will need to get an ADS B antenna for ipad to get live weather in flight. Google ADS- B 2 stratus

No, you don’t, just an internet connection. Used several radar apps in the cockpit. FAA.

But isn’t that delayed weather. The only live is ADS-B or the radar attached to the nose as far as I know. Anything else is dangerous if used for close in deviations. Sure take a big look but the hole your are seeing maybe several minutes old and non existent if you use it to deviate.

As far as I understand it, ADS-B wx is also delayed. Am I wrong? The only live wx is from the wx radar. The ipad wx update is far superior to the technology we had 5 years ago.

We used XM in the USA as a graphical overlay on the ND; a radar app on the iPad as a strategic planning tool. The weather radar is decision making tool close in. The radar apps aren’t real time, but pretty fresh. I wouldn’t use them as sole source for weather avoidance. With Ka band internet, it refreshes fast.

They can be up to 20 minutes old; typically at least 10 minutes.

True, and that is stated on the displays. It’s not an avoidance tool, it’s a planning tool. “The weather is moving north, let’s plan diverting to south, if the weather radar shows that to be the case when we get there.” Or, “let’s slow down now and let the weather move off the field for our arrival in an hour”.

Should be OK. Our airline is trying to sell internet to pax on their ipad/iphone, etc. I thought that I might be able to make a purchase if I really wanted to and get the weather.

I don't mind 20 minute old weather for something that is several hundred miles ahead and I am just trying to get the big picture as compared to no picture at all.

So back to the original question...has anybody tried this?

Yes, although my airline doesn't specifically provide it, I can view publicly available weather radar images with an internet connection, and yes I find it useful.

UAL equipped one DC-10 with XM weather perhaps 15 years ago. This was in addition to the standard airborne wx radar. The idea was to use the XM for strategic planning and the airborne radar for tactical avoidance. Crews some success planning a route into Denver during high TRW activity that avoided more maneuvering on other routes. The company concluded it wasn't worth the expense.

A friend of mine flew a well-equipped Falcon 900EX with both. He found using both properly assured a better flight up and down the east coast in TRW season. I suppose there are some similarly equipped high-end biz jets.

Unless single-flight Wi-Fi access on your airline is prohibitively expensive, why not just try it? What's the harm?