collins wr 2100
Falcon,
THis new radar is very impressive. It can significantly reduce pilot workload. Collins did a tremendous amount of reserach with a BBJ and a research meteorologist that has done hundereds of penetrations in the Nasa DC-8. They used the results to program the algorithms into the database. I wish Id had the mutiscan in the 75/76 I flew. It has many other capabilities in addition to this. However, there is no radar today that can penetrate heavy weather and this is because of wavelength. X band radars can see tiny water droplets. S band Nexrad can penetrate much heavier wx because of its longer wavelength and thats why it was chosen by the NWS. Additionally the TDWR used by many airports now ( look on the back of the Jep 10-9 page) is C band radar and it also suffers from attenuation. Wet hail can cause significant areas of attenuation and some in the tower may not know this. The addition of Nexrad in the cockpit ( excluding of course operating over the tracks ) is an excellent tool to augment airborne radar. Often pilots write up a radar when its really a radome problem, i.e. water ingestion. This often occurs and is completely overlooked by maintenance. Note: I dont work for Collins.