Newbie learning to use a weather radar

That video of the DA42 going into Frankfurt is a bit scary, he was definitely in get-there-itis mode. Interesting to see some controllers comment on Youtube to correct his phraseology and video notes. But the tilt was really the bad part, he was flying blind and was lucky.

I agree with Loco, at least in the cruise, it’s actually not very complicated, and if you have vertical profile view it’s very easy to see what’s ground (symmetrical returns) or weather (asymmetrical vertical bulge upward). On departure I start at +15 and remove 1 degree per 2k feet, roughly, until I get to about +5. In the descent and in the approach environment, I’m still not very comfortable. I’ve tried setting +10 to make sure I don’t underscan, but I still find myself going to vertical profile very often to confirm.

The reality is once you’ve seen enough of them, you don’t mistake a cell for ground returns (or the opposite as he does on the video), but you still need to be careful that your beam doesn’t miss the liquid precipitation – which means, as Achim sometimes points out, you should aim your beam to an altitude comfortably below the -15 degrees C level.

To go back to iz-trips’ question, here’s a cheat sheet for 10" antennas which I find very clear and useful

Radar_Pod_Usage_Guide_pdf

Here’s some weather and radar picture I shot last week. We avoided Learjet-style :-)

As for tilt adjustment, I was anxious about it in the beginning. Now I simply tilt until some terrain displays and then a degree or two up.

ADL is a fantastic tool and concur with the statement of Sebastian. Last friday I had IMC from Balaton lake till Regensburg. Sorry bad quality pics..;-), ouside picture when finally weather improved bordering green, grey IR.

Trying to get on top useless as it sat in all flight levels till 20000Ft. Confirmed by Skew T the day before. Rain without too much turbulence all the other days were really convective from 10:00 UTC onward. OAT was 2- 3 degrees but ice was forming @9000Ft. Used 3 gallons of TKS to get me over the mountains in IMC. The area’s right in the pic painted yellow orange, but didn’t cause turbulence accept of a bit more rain….So all in all I think you need to compile all sources and make your own picture. I try to avoid flying @ time/places when the weather is really convective with potential embedded CBs etc, with collie flowers tending to becoming huge TCUs mushrooms fast……Radar gives you a 3D picture ADL is 2D…
That weather the guy was flying through in the video Bosco posted …well…holy crap…..if you like going through the dark side? It doesn’t look like he was using a stormscope. Not being an expert but it seems he was doing a radar ground mapping of the FRA area..:-) in stead of seeing what was in front…
Windy is a good tool to predict time and place for potential convective weather…..
I would love to have (some) radar and combine it with ADL and a stormscope to have the full tactical picture..I will have to do with eyeball avoidance, stormscope and ADL for now when airborne.

Sebastian_G wrote:

be aware that when getting closer the colors usually get worse.

I’ve actually never noticed that, and even basic GA radars try to compensate for that, so maybe your install has an issue Seb?

I had the impression even if you have a big dish and you know how to fiddle with knobs, the key limit is GA slow speeds? the green arc max is at 160kts, you are just not moving at all while it’s going popcorn around on +1degC/6min

Compared to what you might find in the Amazon, the European CB always looks like TCU, not suggesting y’all go explore them.

Most garden variety GA weather radar suffer attenuation just because they have baby dishes. My advice treat them for strategic planning not tactical picking your way through cells.