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Aviation Weather Apps

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Speaking from the NAVAIR side of things, just how good a radar do you really need to pick your way through storms? I've used an APS-115, APS-130 and now APG-79. None of them are doppler Wx radars, but they're good enough to avoid cells and see the embedded stuff if you tweak them properly and finesse the elevation control.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Speaking from the NAVAIR side of things, just how good a radar do you really need to pick your way through storms? I've used an APS-115, APS-130 and now APG-79. None of them are doppler Wx radars, but they're good enough to avoid cells and see the embedded stuff if you tweak them properly and finesse the elevation control.

Overland with those of us who had surface search radar, it's tough. Completely understandable given our mission set (over-water). But we didn't have any control over ground clutter/elevation (or even 2D elevation, which was pretty cool to play with), so it's not apples and oranges.

The radar I currently have access to is probably more relatable to your system, albeit designed for weather, but I can tilt it as necessary to get rid of ground clutter. Not something I could do in either a B or R. And over land, both were pretty much worthless. But again, understandable for what they were designed for.
 

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
They’re good but not great and don’t show everything out there. Our community had a mishap regarding weather and it’s not something anyone wants to repeat. I know there’s more to the mishap but more SA is always nice.

Ok, I’m looking at an iPad mini 4 with foreflight pro and possibly and ADS-B receiver or at least a Baf Elf GPS receiver. Is it worth the $1k I’m about to drop? My biggest need is oceanic and not operating on airways but near landmasses. If you catch my drift. Would this work as a worst case back up?
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
They’re good but not great and don’t show everything out there. Our community had a mishap regarding weather and it’s not something anyone wants to repeat. I know there’s more to the mishap but more SA is always nice.

Ok, I’m looking at an iPad mini 4 with foreflight pro and possibly and ADS-B receiver or at least a Baf Elf GPS receiver. Is it worth the $1k I’m about to drop? My biggest need is oceanic and not operating on airways but near landmasses. If you catch my drift. Would this work as a worst case back up?
Not, as far as I know, with reference to oceanic.
 

SynixMan

HKG Based Artificial Excrement Pilot
pilot
Contributor
They’re good but not great and don’t show everything out there. Our community had a mishap regarding weather and it’s not something anyone wants to repeat. I know there’s more to the mishap but more SA is always nice.

Ok, I’m looking at an iPad mini 4 with foreflight pro and possibly and ADS-B receiver or at least a Baf Elf GPS receiver. Is it worth the $1k I’m about to drop? My biggest need is oceanic and not operating on airways but near landmasses. If you catch my drift. Would this work as a worst case back up?

I’m not sure if this has been said, but the weather functions of ADS-B is largely reliant on ground stations, so coverage may vary on usefulness.

https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/ICM/
 

sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
Or if you're already in the clouds and the storms are embedded.

This is an issue for us on literally every XC ever, and half the flights off the Boat (particularly during workups off the coast of FL).

We are all-weather attack, mainly because we have no idea where the storms are...
 

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
This is an issue for us on literally every XC ever, and half the flights off the Boat (particularly during workups off the coast of FL).

We are all-weather attack, mainly because we have no idea where the storms are...
So can you manually tilt/tune radar to optimize for viewing precip? Do you get a full color display? Can you draw a course line around a cell of precip?
 

sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
So can you manually tilt/tune radar to optimize for viewing precip? Do you get a full color display? Can you draw a course line around a cell of precip?

Yes, no, and no. There are modes of the radar which might get returns off precip, or they might not- it depends on a bunch of factors. Bear in mind the F/A-18 radar was designed to be able to see through clouds, so it wouldn't be as effective if it was stopped by every bit of moisture in the sky. (Yes, I realize this is an oversimplification of how radars work). However, the bottom line is that it's not designed as a weather radar, and it doesn't function reliably as one. Qualitatively, I can tell you this is the one area where the older mechanically-scanned radars did a little better than their more modern electronically-scanned offspring, but both are still a far cry from an IFR-certified weather radar when it comes to mapping cells and plotting courses around them.

Our 95% solution is simply to visually remain clear of big buildups as much as we can. Of course, that doesn't help when Mom launches you into the weather because that's the way the wind is blowing from (go figure...)
 
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Python

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
So can you manually tilt/tune radar to optimize for viewing precip? Do you get a full color display? Can you draw a course line around a cell of precip?
Yes, no, and no. There are modes of the radar which might get returns off precip, or they might not- it depends on a bunch of factors. Bear in mind the F/A-18 radar was designed to be able to see through clouds, so it wouldn't be as effective if it was stopped by every bit of moisture in the sky. (Yes, I realize this is an oversimplification of how radars work). However, the bottom line is that it's not designed as a weather radar, and it doesn't function reliably as one. Qualitatively, I can tell you this is the one area where the older mechanically-scanned radars did a little better than their more modern electronically-scanned offspring, but both are still a far cry from an IFR-certified weather radar when it comes to mapping cells and plotting courses around them.

Our 95% solution is simply to visually remain clear of big buildups as much as we can. Of course, that doesn't help when Mom launches you into the weather because that's the way the wind is blowing from (go figure...)

For the F-35, the answer is yes, yes, no. It is more useful than what’s on the F-18 for this purpose (and cooler looking with the Weather Channel style color), but still not as great as what you’ll see on an airliner. Same 95% solution described above still applies.
 

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
You know it's easy to forget that for you pointy nose dudes trying to drop kinetic doom on our adversaries, in addition to the bad guys shooting back, you still have to deal with all the normal deadly wx risks like thunderstorms, convective activity, wind shear, hail, etc.
 

picklesuit

Dirty Hinge
pilot
Contributor
You know it's easy to forget that for you pointy nose dudes trying to drop kinetic doom on our adversaries, in addition to the bad guys shooting back, you still have to deal with all the normal deadly wx risks like thunderstorms, convective activity, wind shear, hail, etc.
Don’t forget soft shot Tuesdays...
 
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