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With Flight Cheetah FL 270 you can view NexRAD images up to 500 miles ahead of you, or 250 miles around you. By accessing the composite NexRAD data you have the ability to view the big picture of the convective over your route of flight, and efficiently avoid entire areas without guessing what lays ahead.
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NexRAD Questions:
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- Why are the radar images displayed in cell blocks ? Although it would be easy to send a much higher level of detail through the ORBCOMM system (and thus paint a prettier picture...) doing so would not display any additional useful navigational information. A typical storm can move 2 or more miles in 5 minutes. Painting a higher level of detail than this can even be misleading.
- How old are the radar images ? The national composite radar is updated every 5 minutes by the US government. The typical round-trip time from request to response in the aircraft is 1 to 8 minutes.
- Does Data Link weather replace weather radar ? No, radar weather provides instant tactical information, whereas data link weather provides a strategic "big picture" view.
- Are the radar images geo located ? Yes, all storm cell activity is displayed in direct relation to your aircraft in distance and heading.
- What do the cell colors mean? The three colors of cell activity represent the severity of convective activity: any cells of yellow or red need to be circumnavigated by at least 25 miles.
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- What are the differences between Data Link NexRAD and Onboard radar?
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Has the advantage of providing instantaneous information on echo returns in front of the aircraft, making it ideal for tactical decision-making while in close vicinity of thunderstorms.
It suffers from the the disadvantage of not being able to detect storms at a distance. Additionally, it has problems "seeing through" a cell to let you know what is beyond that echo due to attenuation.
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Has the advantage of providing the big picture of NexRAD Doppler radar activity for several hundred miles ahead, making it ideal for strategic flying. NexRAD can see further ahead than lightning detection equipment, and has the additional benefit to showing you cells before they become mature.
Data Link has a slight time delay due the fact the NWS provides updates once every 5 minutes, and there is a delay incurred in satellite delivery of the data. Any data link information is near-real-time, but is not instantaneous and should never be used for tactical flying.
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