The plane has been back for a few weeks now and I have been doing more flying than blogging. I have also had some down time as I addressed some minor issues and some routine maintenance. Along the way I finally gave my Dad a ride in the Baron. I should have written a post but I forgot to take any pictures. Luckily CC got one because without a picture, it didn't happen.
At 6500 the horizon is about 105 miles away. I was trying to paint weather that was 70-100 miles out. The issue is that at 6500 feet, you typically tilt up about 4 degrees to miss the ground. This works well for weather in the 10-40 mile range as this keeps the bottom of the beam off the ground and the energy in the region of the rain.
Out past 50 miles, most of the beam is above the storm I was able to paint the weather but I really should have focused on lower scan angles. this would have had a band of ground clutter up close but better long range resolution.
One other area I am still learning to deal with is cities. They paint like strong storms. Take a look at Savannah as I was turning towards home. Its the storm at 85 miles left of the nose.
I also played with the vertical profile mode today. Normally the unit scans left to right. In vertical mode, you pick a direction and it scans up and down. You will always see the ground but you also see a slice of a storm. I did it twice, once pointed at a storm and the second time at a clear area. I should have zoomed in to make it a bit clearer though. Note the scale, you are looking up over 180,000 feet. Storms typically live in the 0-60,000 range and that's what we see below.
Overall it was good practice and I learned a bit more and knocked some rust off old skills. I am still more comfortable in the 10-40 mile range but with more practice I hope to get better out to 90 miles. Past that the Geometry and Physics are stacked against you.
