AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2013 - 88

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PROFICIENCY

approached a line of thunderstorms. I had
queried him about where other airplanes
were traversing the weather.
“Petersburg, Virginia, is just ahead of
you with a courtesy car and a decent restaurant nearby,” he replied. “By the time you
get back from eating, all this weather will be
through here.” That’s all we needed to hear.
And he was right—we flew home in mostly
clear skies. I didn’t scare my (future) wife,
myself, or put the airplane in harm’s way.
When it comes to datalink, of course,
you’ve likely heard that there’s a delay
associated with the weather pictures you
get. It’s a great tool for getting around
areas of weather, but not for picking your
way between storms. For that, you need
weather radar aboard, and a good one at
that. Radar paints a picture of the weather
in real time. But there’s a learning curve
with radar that pilots must be familiar
with, mainly involving the Tilt control,
which aims the beam up and down.
But just because you graduate to an
airplane that has radar doesn’t mean you
can fly in any weather. General aviation
airplanes are hobbled by radar systems
that use a small dish, usually about 10
to 12 inches in diameter. Because of this,
they can’t transmit or receive as much
information as radar in larger airplanes.
In general, radar in a GA airplane is good
for about 40 miles of range. It’s also
more prone to shadowing, where a storm
cell could absorb all of the radar beam’s
energy, effectively hiding storm cells that
could be lurking beyond.
An airliner has a comparatively huge
dish mounted behind its nose cone, allowing a much larger and powerful radar beam
that can snoop out storms 300 miles or so
ahead. It also doesn’t shadow storms that
may be lurking beyond the one you’re looking at. Keep in mind the size of your dish
and quality of your radar system before
tangling with storms.
Sferics—lightning detectors such
as L3’s Stormscope and Insight’s Strike
Finder—are still very valuable items to
have in your weather avoidance arsenal, especially if you live in more tropical
climates such as Florida. Often, flying
airliners into Florida airports, we paint
88 | AOPA PILOT April 2013
http://www.aopa.org/cars http://www.aopa.org/cars http://www.aopa.org/cars http://www.aviationseminars.com/pilot http://www.sun-n-fun.org
AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2013

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