Yesterday I did an IFR training flight with a student in a Pa28 Archer. It was his first training flight in the real aircraft, before he had done a few hours in the procedures trainer as per our modular syllabus. The weather was/is quite strange for June right now with almost 50kt wind at 5000ft and frontal convective stuff coming through every few hours.
When we flew through our first cloud we were shaken a bit and I briefed him on the steering technique to adopt for the worse stuff that could be seen coming ahead: Hold your horizon more or less steady with the least possible effort and don’t chase altitude and airspeed. Forget about the heading altogether, we will sort that out when we will be able to read the instruments again…
Then the controller tells us: “Turn right direct KRH”, shortly followed by “callsign… I suggest you turn 30 degrees to the left to avoid some massive precipitation that I can see on my radar ahead of you” followed shortly thereafter by “callsign… even better: turn further left direct KBA beacon- this should keep you out of the worst”. We still had some interesting flying with ground speed varying between 60kt and 150kt and a holding pattern that must have resembled anything but not a holding pattern (and some angry Ryanair boss whose airrcaft we held on the ground for 5 extra minutes because our progress down the ILS and during the low approach was a bit on the slow side). All in all plenty for my studen’ts first real IFR session 
So yes, now I know for sure that ATC have an excellent weather radar and they can use it in the best possible way to steer light aircraft around ugly weather. If they only wish to do so.
what_next wrote:
So yes, now I know for sure that ATC have an excellent weather radar and they can use it in the best possible way to steer light aircraft around ugly weather. If they only wish to do so.
In Germany. Last I heard this is not the case in France,and I do not know whether there are any plans to acquire that capability despite DGAC recommendations following an episode of thunderstorms during which several flightcrews were hurt during holding inbound to Orly a couple of years back. Maybe @Guillaume knows more?
I got exactly this in Belgium yesterday.
“There is a band of very severe weather from Antwerp to Luxembourg but from where I am sitting it looks like you should head 120.”
what_next wrote:
So yes, now I know for sure that ATC have an excellent weather radar and they can use it in the best possible way to steer light aircraft around ugly weather. If they only wish to do so.
That’s great. I had similar 
experiance few years ago with Pula radar (in Croatia) when they got new weather radar.
I just departed from Pula (LDPL) airport heading southeast to Split (LDSP). The conversation went like this: “9A-SAW Pula radar are VMC or IMC now? … IMC 9A-SAW … Are you experiencing some precitipation and turbulence? … Moderate turbulence and heavy precitipation 9A-SAW … OK. That’s good. We have new radar and we also see heavy precitipation at your position and 20 miles ahead on your route. Thanks for confirming, the equipment works great. … Well, can you help me a bit with avoiding? 9A-SAW … Oh, yes. Heading 180 should lead you out of this in 5 miles. … Heading 180. 9A-SAW. Thanks.”
I didn’t ask why I didn’t get warning a bit earlier before entering this embeded TCU/CB
Without a doubt there is a “liability avoidance” protocol for passing on the info.
I got such reports too, years ago, when having to do some very fast action due to freezing rain, but I am damn sure the unit (EGHH) doesn’t offer this service routinely.
The main reason is probably that the larger stuff, which is the huge majority of their work, have on-board weather radar and don’t need much help. Seeing the weather situation is of course hugely beneficial to the controller, or when it is really bad since the crew can’t see the overall picture in i’s weather display, only the 90 or so degree sector ahead
Seeing the whole picture would be beneficial to the pilots. The limitation of the onboard weather radar is that it does not show what is behind the weather immediately ahead of it (what is in the radar shadow).
On the ground the controllers may not have a weather overlay at all.
There’s been instances in France where aircraft were sent into a hold in the middle of a nasty CB that was not detected by the crew for reasons I cannot recall. I tried to find the incident report but instead I found this security study, unfortunately only in French.
Aviathor wrote:
There’s been instances in France where aircraft were sent into a hold in the middle of a nasty CB
That almost happened to me few years ago at LDSP. ATC vectored me direct to CB because of arriving CAT. Luckily I was in VMC and able to clearly see CB just few miles ahead, refused the instruction and proposed heading where I would stay out of weather. And I had short discussion with ATC on “first come first served principle” because I was able to land at least 5 min before arriving CAT, yet they gave them the advantage.
If I could only take one of airborne radar, ATC radar, stormscope and ADL I would take the ADL.
What is the difference between
They should be the same, because few if any ATC (airport) units will have their own wx radar. Whatever wx radar they have is just a feed from their national wx centre or whoever operates the wx radar head.
In fact the ATC feed is probably more “real time” because the combined European feed is reprocessed for commercial re-sale and there are various delays according to how much you pay.
Airborne radar is a bit of kit which starts at 50k and requires expert use and significant interpretation skills. But not many pilots who fly with the ones which actually work (and know how to use it) would say anything is better.
ATC vectored me direct to CB because of arriving CAT
That situation is always potentially there if one has descended into IMC some distance away from the terminal (arrival) area, so one cannot see where the stuff is. I was facing such a situation (not a CB though) only once, in 2013, near Lille LFQQ, but was able to divert to Le Touquet LFAT which was clear (actual destination was the UK but I needed a refuel). Nothing actually happened but it was the last long trip Justine ever did with me Had I flown on to land at Lille I would have slowed right down in the expectation of flying through some TCUs…
That’s the situations where the ADL really comes in handy. Nothing worse than be forced to descend into IMC, nit knowing where the CBs are. My experience is that the 15 minute interval of the radar images delivered to the ADL are sufficient to avoid this, Actually I cannot even imnagine anymore flying in IMC without the ADL … although I know that private IFR pilots did that for decades.
(The ADL can be set up the way that it automatically downloads the picture every 19 min.)
