"Richard Kaplan" wrote:
One of the main problems with the Bendix/King system is that since it is
ground-based, in many situations you cannot use it to get a weather
picture
before takeoff or at "low" altitude ("low" depending on how near a
transmission station is to where you are flying, of course). So it might
not be available when you really want to use it.

Yes, that is a disadvantage of their system. But it looks like WSI's map is
not a moving map that will show the position and direction of the aircraft,
a big disadvantage, IMO - is that true?

Another nice feature of the WSI system is that the data is the same as
what
you see on the Internet at www.intellicast.com and it is also the same
data
most of us see at FBOs across the country -- please correct me if I am
wrong, but I do not think there is an Internet site to view the data in
the
Bendix/King system.
This is important because there is a learning curve in
any radar or Nexrad system to learn how to interpret the graphics from the
perspective of "Am I willing to fly thorugh that?" Most of us are
already
quite familiar with radar images from Intellicast or from WSI computers at
FBOs. With the Bendix/King system, you may not even be able to turn on
your avionics on the ground to work through this learning curve.

They have the brochure on line at
http://www.bendixking.com/static/bro...pdf/KDR510.pdf which shows the
MFD depicting NEXRAD base reflectivity. Looks just like what I see on
Intellicast. The unit also gives graphic METARS, etc.

My main concern about the satellite systems is still the bandwith question.
B/K had a pretty convincing demonstration of how other venders'
bandwith-saving software tricks could cause innacurate weather images. Also,
due to limited bandwidth, map resolution was not as good on the satellite
systems.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM