Radar failures and ACARS
Good Question, Howland.
The Collins radar on the AF330 fleet is highly monitored, and since it's an essential system, any detected failure would be transmitted via ACARS so that maintenance would be prepared to fix it.
Possible undetected failures would include:
*Heavy coating of ice on the radome - highly unlikely.
*Antenna plate coming detached from its pedestal. It is attached by clamps held by two small bolts that are safety-wired. That one is pretty rare, too.
All other functions, including antenna drive position, are monitored, and hence any failure would be reported.
Water ingestion into the honeycomb structure of the radome may cause false targets, but will not get large enough to matter at altitude, once frozen.
The pilot, of course, has to engage the Wx radar to display, and has to adjust intensity of the Wx display, mode, and tilt. The radar range is the range selected for Navigation on the display. Those are normal functions not reported by ACARS, and therefore a missing link at this point.
GB
Last edited by Graybeard; 11th Jul 2009 at 15:50.
Reason: of the radome