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Ship’s Radar Upgrades: Garmin Leads the Way

If you’re stepping up into the world of higher-end twins and some high-flying singles, you’ll eventually be faced with maintenance of onboard weather radar. Upgrading and maintaining weather radar is an expensive investment, and the benefits of real-time ship’s weather radar might not be obvious to today’s datalink pilot. But resist the urge to yank ship radar from the airframe—it still has its place. On a recent trip up the East coast in a small twin, we were picking our way along the back edge of a slow-moving line of Gulf-fed buildups that offered no shortage of drama for hundreds of miles. It was a tense flight, but tempered by the NEXRAD images steadily arriving from XM. But as we motored closer to a large cluster of buildups, XM’s image just wasn’t jiving with our view through the windscreen. A watchful controller then offered a heading through a gap that would have been through the heart of a red NEXRAD return.

Larry Anglisano
Verified

If you’re stepping up into the world of higher-end twins and some high-flying singles, you’ll eventually be faced with maintenance of onboard weather radar. Upgrading and maintaining weather radar is an expensive investment, and the benefits of real-time ship’s weather radar might not be obvious to today’s datalink pilot. But resist the urge to yank ship radar from the airframe—it still has its place.

On a recent trip up the East coast in a small twin, we were picking our way along the back edge of a slow-moving line of Gulf-fed buildups that offered no shortage of drama for hundreds of miles. It was a tense flight, but tempered by the NEXRAD images steadily arriving from XM.

Larry Anglisano

Editor in Chief Larry Anglisano has been a staple at Aviation Consumer since 1995. An active land, sea and glider pilot, Larry has over 30 years’ experience as an avionics repairman and flight test pilot. He’s the editorial director overseeing sister publications Aviation Safety magazine, IFR magazine and is a regular contributor to KITPLANES magazine with his Avionics Bootcamp column.