What I haven't seen from those bragging about their superior airmanship enabling them to turn it off, is what the actual benefit of doing so is? There doesn't seem to be any.

In which case having it on seems to be wise. If nothing else you might see stuff long before the naked eye would,and get s better picture of the full structure which would.enable much better/more efficient avoidance strategy.

Hello Guys,

After watching that interesting video about the Rockwell Collins radar presented by Mister Steve Paramore (link below) I sent him an Email asking his opinion about his recommendation on how to use the radar and he was kind enough to reply. For those interested, here's his reply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_2NruqjQi4


"Hi Gregory,

Sorry for my slow reply. I recently retired from Rockwell Collins and now work contract for them. So I am not regularly checking my email. In the past, with very old weather radars, it was common practice to turn off the radar whenever there was no significant weather because you quickly wore out the magnetron. Today's digital radars no longer use magnetrons and have a very long life. So we recommend having the radar on from push back to taxi in. With that said, over time there will be wear and tear on the gears and bearings in the pedestal. And although Rockwell Collins has a very low failure rate for these components, they are a mechanical system and are subject to failure. So some airlines elect to keep the radar off during operations to reduce the mechanical wear and tear.

And I think this was mentioned in the Cathay video, but the radar is a very minuscule radiation hazard... less than standing in front of a micorwave oven. So it is safe to turn it on during taxi.

Sincerely,

Steve"