Airborne weather RADAR (22-05-18) Flashcards
What is the basic principle of airborne weather RADAR?
It operates at 9375MHz
designed to show certain size of water droplets (CB & TCU)
Wavelength is similar to that of the droplets (3.2cm)
Max range of 150nm
As well as detecting water droplets, what can airborne weather RADAR be used for?
Ground mapping
What reflects the least regarding airborne weather RADAR?
Ice crystals and dry snow
What reflects the most regarding airborne weather RADAR?
Hail, wet snow, rain, heavy rain and wet hail
What is the angle of tilt regarding airborne weather RADAR?
The angle between the aircraft longitudinal axis and the centreline of the beam.
What does the airborne weather RADAR test function allow the pilot to do?
Test most of the functions without actually turning it on.
What are the colour coded weather intensities reported by the airborne weather RADAR?
Green, light precipitation, 0.7 - 4mm/hr
Amber, medium precipitation, 4 - 12mm/hr
Red, heavy precipitation, >12mm/hr
Magenta, turbulence due to rainfall intensity
What is the WEA mode functionality for a monochrome AWR?
Produces a pencil beam and scans side to side to give weather at a certain level.
What is the CONT mode functionality for a monochrome AWR?
Creates a pencil beam which scans side to side
isoechos are created which creates holes in the returns to indicate areas where the strongest signal are located.
Where is the worst turbulence found for AWR?
Where the gradient of colour change in returns is the highest.
What is ground clutter for AWR?
Where the sidelobes from the RADAR reflect off the ground close to the RADAR producing a ring on smaller ranges.
On the AWR returns what is a black hole behind a red area a potential warning of?
A very active zone.
What is blind alley or box canyon regarding AWR returns and how do you avoid it?
Where a gap between strong returns leads to a wall of strong returns.
A pilot should alter their RADAR range to check ahead of a gap between strong returns to ensure this doesn’t occur.
When an AWR is in map mode in MAP mode, what is the range and what kind of beam is created?
<60-70nm
COSEC2 FAN beam
When an AWR is in map mode in MAN mode, what is the range and how is it controlled?
>60-70nm
With manual GAIN control
When considering an AWR in map mode, what is hill shadow and how can it be reduced?
The effect of an obstacle obscuring the view to any objects behind it.
can fly higher to reduce it.
