Marine Radar in a plane?

Yesterday, as we were once again flying blindly toward unknown weather, Mary
and I lamented the fact that we'll never have radar on board our Pathfinder.
Too expensive to contemplate. Ditto with the "live uplink" stuff that's
just coming on the market.

So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use? Checking
around on-line, it looks like you can get a pretty basic marine radar set up
for less than $2000 -- a tiny percentage of what "aviation" radar would
cost.

Anyone tried this in a home-built plane? What's the range of those units?
Installation?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I thought marine radar was tuned for seeing objects not weather? Things
like radar bouys and other ATONs, and ships in the fog.

Also, I have to say after having radar for 4 years I find radar useful, but
not critical. You still want to keep 20 miles or so from any storm, and
most of the GA sized units can only accurately depict weather at 40 miles.
Much further and the beam is too big.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Y7OZa.121718$uu5.17371@sccrnsc04...
Yesterday, as we were once again flying blindly toward unknown weather,
Mary
and I lamented the fact that we'll never have radar on board our
Pathfinder.
Too expensive to contemplate. Ditto with the "live uplink" stuff that's
just coming on the market.

So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use?
Checking
around on-line, it looks like you can get a pretty basic marine radar set
up
for less than $2000 -- a tiny percentage of what "aviation" radar would
cost.

Anyone tried this in a home-built plane? What's the range of those units?
Installation?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 14:55:52 GMT, Jay Honeck wrote:
Yesterday, as we were once again flying blindly toward unknown weather, Mary
and I lamented the fact that we'll never have radar on board our Pathfinder.
Too expensive to contemplate. Ditto with the "live uplink" stuff that's
just coming on the market.

So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use? Checking
around on-line, it looks like you can get a pretty basic marine radar set up
for less than $2000 -- a tiny percentage of what "aviation" radar would
cost.


I have always heard that a lightning detector such as StrikeFinder
or Stormscope works just as well as radar for thunderstorm avoidance,
and is more compact and less expensive than full-blown weather radar.
Eastern Avionics website lists several models for $3-6000 plus
install.


Ross Oliver

Radar reflects energy from something more or less solid...like a cloud full
of water. Sferics devices detect electrical discharges. They are two
different systems performing two different functions by measuring different
parameters. The ideal is to have both. If you have only one, you must
understand its limitations. A sferics device will not keep you from flying
into an ice-filled cloud, and radar will not detect clouds that do not
contain droplets of a certain diameter relative to wavelength.

Belt and suspenders.

Bob Gardner

"Ross Oliver" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 14:55:52 GMT, Jay Honeck
wrote:
Yesterday, as we were once again flying blindly toward unknown weather,
Mary
and I lamented the fact that we'll never have radar on board our
Pathfinder.
Too expensive to contemplate. Ditto with the "live uplink" stuff that's
just coming on the market.

So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use?
Checking
around on-line, it looks like you can get a pretty basic marine radar set
up
for less than $2000 -- a tiny percentage of what "aviation" radar would
cost.


I have always heard that a lightning detector such as StrikeFinder
or Stormscope works just as well as radar for thunderstorm avoidance,
and is more compact and less expensive than full-blown weather radar.
Eastern Avionics website lists several models for $3-6000 plus
install.


Ross Oliver

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Y7OZa.121718$uu5.17371@sccrnsc04...
So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use?

Granted, I know very little about marine radar, but just given the
application, I'd suspect that it would not have characteristics suitable for
aviation. For one, all of the marine radar installations I've seen use a
rotating antenna, which would be hard to find a place to mount on a plane.
Beyond that, I don't know what the range of a cheap marine radar is, but
I'll bet it's significantly shorter than an aviation unit. Also, my
understanding is that marine radar is designed to optimize imaging of other
watercraft and coastlines, not weather.

Far be it from me to dissuade someone from trying. But I sure wouldn't hold
my breath waiting to see if they were successful.

I'd rather have both radar and lightning detection, but I agree that the
lightning detection gives you much more utility for the money.

Pete

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Y7OZa.121718$uu5.17371@sccrnsc04...

Yesterday, as we were once again flying blindly toward unknown weather,
Mary
and I lamented the fact that we'll never have radar on board our
Pathfinder.
Too expensive to contemplate. Ditto with the "live uplink" stuff that's
just coming on the market.


Strikefinder or Stormscope would be far more useful than radar in a
single-engine plane.

My RDR-160 radar was the worst investment I ever made in my plane. CBAV is
far more useful, and certainly the newer portable and panel-mount datalink
systems seem to have the potential to beat CBAV.

Saying my radar has a range of 160 miles is a cruel joke; its range is
really only 40-50 miles, and even then it only works that far out if there
is a strong storm around. No piston airplane has the speed or altitude
capability to pentrate a line of thunderstorms and thus any piston plane can
get boxed in if a hole closes in from behind while trying to use radar to
find "holes" in storms.
--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote

Strikefinder or Stormscope would be far more useful than radar in a
single-engine plane.

My RDR-160 radar was the worst investment I ever made in my plane. CBAV is
far more useful, and certainly the newer portable and panel-mount datalink
systems seem to have the potential to beat CBAV.

Saying my radar has a range of 160 miles is a cruel joke; its range is
really only 40-50 miles, and even then it only works that far out if there
is a strong storm around. No piston airplane has the speed or altitude
capability to pentrate a line of thunderstorms and thus any piston plane can
get boxed in if a hole closes in from behind while trying to use radar to
find "holes" in storms.

I bet your Radar does have a 160 mile range. What altitude were you
at? Because of the curvature of the earth that set's going to
attenuate badly down low. You probably can't use the 160 range
effectively till you get up much higher like over 10,000AGL. Even
jets have to step the range down as they get lower. Bob's right:
using the set correctly is quite an art. Many copilots I've flown
with can't do it right. For some reason, radar training is kind of a
lost art.

Best Regards,

pacplyer

The RDR-160 has a 160 mile setting but the beam is huge at anything over 40
miles. At 40 miles it is something like 40,000 feet tall. So anything in
the range is going to get hit and might return. So if you try to use tilt
for identifying anything much beyond 40 miles (next settings are 80, 120 and
160) you are painting with a very big brush, and with limited power
(compared to big iron). The joys of 10 or 12 inch antennas.

With that said it is still nice to know what is out there are 40 miles or
so. I just wish it painted a better picture further out.


"pac plyer" wrote in message
om...
"Richard Kaplan" wrote

Strikefinder or Stormscope would be far more useful than radar in a
single-engine plane.

My RDR-160 radar was the worst investment I ever made in my plane. CBAV
is
far more useful, and certainly the newer portable and panel-mount
datalink
systems seem to have the potential to beat CBAV.

Saying my radar has a range of 160 miles is a cruel joke; its range is
really only 40-50 miles, and even then it only works that far out if
there
is a strong storm around. No piston airplane has the speed or altitude
capability to pentrate a line of thunderstorms and thus any piston plane
can
get boxed in if a hole closes in from behind while trying to use radar
to
find "holes" in storms.

I bet your Radar does have a 160 mile range. What altitude were you
at? Because of the curvature of the earth that set's going to
attenuate badly down low. You probably can't use the 160 range
effectively till you get up much higher like over 10,000AGL. Even
jets have to step the range down as they get lower. Bob's right:
using the set correctly is quite an art. Many copilots I've flown
with can't do it right. For some reason, radar training is kind of a
lost art.

Best Regards,

pacplyer

I am not an expert! But I have several friends, both of which are
ex-military pilots. One owns a C310 with radar and stormscope and the
other friend has a C210 with radar and stormscope.

Both agree that given a choice they would rather have the stormscope
over radar any day. They reason they said is that the stormscope
displays lightning and electrical disturbance and that is exact where
the worst convective air is. Radar only shows where water is. Simply put
convective air kills and rain doesn't.



Jay Honeck wrote:
Yesterday, as we were once again flying blindly toward unknown weather, Mary
and I lamented the fact that we'll never have radar on board our Pathfinder.
Too expensive to contemplate. Ditto with the "live uplink" stuff that's
just coming on the market.

So, I thought, why not adapt a marine radar unit to aircraft use? Checking
around on-line, it looks like you can get a pretty basic marine radar set up
for less than $2000 -- a tiny percentage of what "aviation" radar would
cost.

Anyone tried this in a home-built plane? What's the range of those units?
Installation?

Nick Funk wrote in message ...
I am not an expert! But I have several friends, both of which are
ex-military pilots. One owns a C310 with radar and stormscope and the
other friend has a C210 with radar and stormscope.

Both agree that given a choice they would rather have the stormscope
over radar any day. They reason they said is that the stormscope
displays lightning and electrical disturbance and that is exact where
the worst convective air is. Radar only shows where water is. Simply put
convective air kills and rain doesn't.


Kind of a funky argument Nick (sorry, couldn't resist. :-)
Interesting theory though, haven't heard that one before. The biggest
thing to avoid is the third stage of a thunderstorms' life: the mature
stage. Characterized by heavy precip (rain and hail) lightening,
strong up and downdrafts within the cell and strong surface winds etc.
Either means of detection will let you know that something's there.
But wx radar, in the right hands will yield more info about how tall
the cells are (and that's what's going to kill you, a powerfull cell
that towers up to say 30-50K in the northern hemisphere that for some
reason, has no excessive positive ions on the bottom of it for the
moment.) What I want to know when I'm crossing a line is: which is
the tallest set of cells so I can avoid that direction all together.
Getting "boxed in" happens to everybody sooner or later in X-C GA IFR,
and it would be nice to be able to know which choice is the lesser
evil and then go around the upwind side of the shortest cell if
possible.

After lots of guys get out of their units, we retrain them and they
become staunch advocates of full wx radar. I see it all the time.
Disclaimer: I have not used much GA radar so I am talking about a
three degree beam with a lot of juice and a big dish.

Keep the pointed end forward,

pacplyer