Flying in IMC with a stormscope and no radar

Especially low in the terminal area, where one doesn’t avoid with a large margin like enroute.

I’m not confident enough to fly without onboard radar. I got into severe turbulence once (with radar :) and am very scared since then.
For the day that I described earlier, I couldn’t fly only with online image, as the coverage ends half way east to Warsaw like on the pic below. You can still see strike data, which is nice. Also have a video

You can switch the radar on ground and point it up. I’ve seen airliners get on the runway, sweep and taxi back. Maybe some professional can confirm that’s the case.

[ video ]

Peter wrote:

Are there specific scenarios where you would not depart with an ADL image but would depart with a radar image, and why?

Not quite sure I understand the question. If, as I showed I am departing into a terminal area where there is a lot of convective activity and lightning strikes (which could be seen from the apron), I would want RADAR.

They are complementary.

To summarise, if I think I have to actually dodge TS, I need onboard RADAR.

The ADL150 delivers delayed radar data but it could deliver much less delayed sferics data.

A CB can build up rather fast but it usually takes some time until it produces lightning. While it might be possible to deliver data link lightning with less delay I think it would be of limited use. In nearly all situations the delayed radar image will display a growing CB before it would even show up on real time lightning detection systems. Therefore the ADL system tries to align the lightning download rhythm with the radar downloads

Also is it possible for convective wx to produce lightning with nothing showing on the ADL?

Not under normal conditions but remember there can always be any malfunction and radar returns can be attenuated due to geographic features. A customer recently reported that he did enter a CB with his ADL near Portoroz. Reviewing the data indeed showed that the radar return were a bit weaker than what I would expect from a CB but there was lightning and a high infrared return detected at that place. So the problem was more between the headphones. If there is any kind of radar return and lightning and high infrared don’t go there even if the radar is not all red…

I find sat strikes more useful than stormscope. Delayed but accurate with unlimited range. There’s also global coverage as opposed to sat rain data.

I am not sure about the global coverage. Lightning detection coverage is indeed bigger than radar but most of the globe is still not covered properly. The only close to global weather detection system seem to be infrared satellite images. I read about satellite based lightning detection systems compared to traditional ground based systems but I have not seen any such data to be commercially available yet.

couldn’t fly only with online image, as the coverage ends half way east to Warsaw like on the pic below.

You need an ADL device instead of the much more expensive Garmin gear as we have radar coverage for the whole of Poland ;-)

It is very difficult without RADAR. I posted on PPL/IR last week a short flight I did from Munich. Download radar was fine but you needed real time to have any comfort.

Referring to this screenshot data link weather has got its limitations but beyond that the data displayed by the various apps varies a lot. So it can also be worth to compare the data in different apps.

Sebastian_G wrote:

I am not sure about the global coverage. Lightning detection coverage is indeed bigger than radar but most of the globe is still not covered properly.

My experience was that it works anywhere, but I never checked. Found a map