Can anybody explain?
Probably this.
For heavy use and where you have the right software running at your end and don’t mind doing some messing around, the Thuraya system is cheaper than the above’s Iridium. Thuraya is also less reliable, however.
For low level flying (say below 3000ft) and with even less reliability you can use 3G/4G and just a smartphone.
At the risk of being accused of nit-picking, on-board weather radar is the only means of getting real-time information. All other means have 10-20 minutes of lag. You might say that this is of no importance if it hadn’t already killed a number of pilots, so I am going to seize the opportunity to link the NTSB’s corresponding Safety Alert about the issue here.
Gotta be honest, Peter, I was surprised at how affordable it was to replace my radar with a new unit, actually. The option I had was trying to get an old bulky EX600 that could display the old analog radar. They kind of start at $6K used if you can find one. New they’re $10K. In the end the new radar cost $15K and it displays directly on the Avidyne as an overlay, so not that bad. I made the decision that it was worth the extra cost $5-8K in cost in the end.
A second hand stormscope can be bought on ebay for 2k$, maybe even less. Installation would be possible on every airplane as per EASA minor change. Can’t see any cheaper solution for a “real time” inflight weather info. As Peter suggested on low altitudes cellular connection might give you access to standard weather apps. ADL app works great in this scenario.
Robin_253 wrote:
A second hand stormscope can be bought on ebay for 2k$, maybe even less. Installation would be possible on every airplane as per EASA minor change. Can’t see any cheaper solution for a “real time” inflight weather info. As Peter suggested on low altitudes cellular connection might give you access to standard weather apps. ADL app works great in this scenario.
A stormscope? Really? I think they are a waste of money personally.
Why do you think that, Jason?
JasonC wrote:
A stormscope? Really? I think they are a waste of money personally.
I don’t think they provide particularly accurate information and even when they do, it is limited in scope to significant electrical activity and still only provides an approximate direction and intensity. In Europe it is far more useful to get airborne or down linked radar. The downlinked version can usually include actual lightning strikes anyway.
From my (limited) experience of flying with a stormscope near convective weather, it will light up long before any lightning reaches the ground, which I presume is what you call “actual lightning strikes”. But when we are in the air, we are also concerned about discharges between clouds, and in that case I have seen active areas with strikes which wouldn’t have been particularly conspicuous on a ground based radar. If I had the choice to do so, I would try to fit weather radar and stormscope onto a plane and try to overlay both. At least in some Avidyne equipped SR22 that I rented, the MFD would actually allow you to combine the downlink radar with the stormscope strikes, a presentation which I find useful.
