BE19Pilot

The more things change and technology advances in aviation. The more it seems things remain stagnant and archaic in the airline business. All the advances have been borne out of cost savings; more efficient engines, aerodynamics, FMS, EFIS. All of these devices reduce the operating cost of the airplane and some just happen to have the side benefit of making the airplane easier to operate.
Now, on the operational side things aren't advancing because it costs too much money for too little (if any) benefit. There is very little difference between how we dispatch today then how airlines did it in 1959...Paperless cockpit is still a long way away. Teletypes have given way to computers. Software has taken over the job of monitoring lines of flying, scheduling crews and tracking MELs. Unless and until money is saved using NEXRAD or similar product, we might as well be flying a DC-6. Because we aren't getting the information in anymore of a timely manner than those folks did.

Mason32

and your point was ?

BE19Pilot

Don't count on NEXRAD or any other real-time weather data in your cockpit anytime soon other than your Mk 1, Mod 0 eyeball. Obviously, you aren't astute enough to understand my point.

jeeps

Based on my time using both XM and on-board radar (seperately), I would say XM is far superior, for all the reasons already mentioned. It allows you to see the big picture, nut just what's ahead, allowing you to plan your routing or rerouting earlier rather than last minute. There's no signal attenuation due to strong returns, it's ground based it sees front and back. However, there is a signal lag, which sucks, there are also dead spots across the US where there is no radar coverage (mountainous areas at lower altitudes). Finally, there is no altitude or pitch control of what you're seeing, it's the composite image. Both on-board and downloaded would be quite a useful bag of tools, though...like that would ever happen


Regarding use in a 121 cockpit...is there a problem with carrying on-board something like a garmin 2-,3-,4-96 with XM on it?

BoilerUP

I don't think somebody can say one is any "better" than the other; they are more complimentary than superior. If anything, I'd say many pilots don't know how to properly utilize the capability of their airplane's onboard radar.

If I only had to have one means of weather avoidance (and believe me, I want both), I'd want ship's radar. The ship's radar will show me what a cell or line of weather is doing NOW where NEXRAD is delayed at least a few minutes and CRWs are so dynamic that a NEXRAD image can be completely useless by the time it updates in your airplane. Sure that outdated NEXRAD image could show things beyond the limitations of ship's radar (an attenuated cell, for example) but that's where procedures & technique as a professional airman comes in.

Again, "tactical" vs. "strategic" use; both are important in the ADM process but I've always got to know what's happening in front of me right now.

145Driver

I tend to agree with Boiler on this. My kneejerk reaction was that, given a choice, I'd choose onboard radar over XM/NEXRAD any day of the week. However, both have their weaknesses, and both actually have been known to be wrong. Using NEXRAD one day in a King Air We were shown to be heading right into a very heavy storm. ATC also issued a warning. When we were "in it" it was actually crystal clear for 100 miles in any direction. As for onboard radar, they also have their weaknesses, especially in the 145. Looking out the window is especially helpful! :-)

XSive

XM wx is great however sometimes it puts you on edge when you dont have to be...There has been many times when the nexrad is painting a cell a few hundred miles away, we sit there wonder what our options are only to find out that the weather is WAYYYYY below us...a mixture of onboard radar and XM WX is the best way to go though...

sopdan

That's what I was thinking while reading this thread... how many times have we been advised by ATC "Radar depicts moderate to severe precip. at your 12 o'clock extending xxx miles"? And when you look outside, you're well above any cloud in any direction.

As others have already said, both have their limitations, and a combination would be awesome. But I'm not holding my breath here.

Jetspeed

Horizon has XM weather on their new EFB's.

nwa757

I think the Air France incident may have benefitted from XM radar wx info, and I know I would like it. Why can i get more updated wx on my laptop on the ground than I can at altitude trying to decipher embedded TS?

It always takes a crash like this to advance safety.