On 6/18/04 3:07 PM, in article , "Dan
Luke" wrote:


"Jack" wrote:

With onboard radar and a cruising altitude of FL260,
one would think it would be relatively easy to avoid
penetrating a thunderstorm.

It's just as easy with no radar and a service ceiling in the
low teens: just say, "No!"

If you 'just say, "No!"' to flying any time the NEXRAD is blooming, you
won't use your airplane for travel very much near the Gulf Coast for
most of the year - unless you can finish all your flights before 10 AM.

That's "No!" to "penetrating a thunderstorm", if you'll take a closer look,
and is not the same as "No!" to flying.

Radar and FL 260 capability is no defense against thunderstorms, if you
don't know what to do with those resources. FL 260 won't put you over them,
and you need a good deal of ability to interpret what you see on the radar
in any case, and that doesn't come quick, easy, or cheap.

Day or night, with radar or without, stay VMC in areas with thunderstorms
and give them a wide berth.

Can you go over them if you have enough altitude capability? Sure you can,
but first define "enough" -- FL 350, FL 450, FL 550? Sometimes even FL 550
isn't enough. And since your altitude capability requires having all engines
running, if you lose one it is possible to get yourself in a position where,
due to weather and terrain, you can't get out of the box in which loss of
your high altitude capability puts you without penetrating weather you don't
want to be in. And that's just one scenario to consider. I'm sure folks here
on the NG can come up with others, esp., those with tens of thousands of
hours in their log books. We didn't accumulate those hours by treating
thunderstorms lightly. There are a number of ways to avoid the dangers of
thunderstorms, and only one of them is "not flying".



Jack