Have any of you decided to include the Stormscope in your SR20 or 22? I am trying to justify spending $9,500 to add a Stormscope to my SR22 (#204), when ARNAV will offer real-time weather uplink soon. Any thoughts?
If and when real time weather is available for your Cockpit display, there will be at least two draw backs: 1. A subscriber fee, and 2. You will only get the information available on the ground, which includes clowds and precip, but not lightning. Yopu can get the precip info from the ATC; having real time lightning info can enable you to cross a front through rain, confident there is little likelihood of a lightning strike.
Have any of you decided to include the Stormscope in your SR20 or 22? I am trying to justify spending $9,500 to add a Stormscope to my SR22 (#204), when ARNAV will offer real-time weather uplink soon. Any thoughts?
Have any of you decided to include the Stormscope in your SR20 or 22? I am trying to justify spending $9,500 to add a Stormscope to my SR22 (#204), when ARNAV will offer real-time weather uplink soon. Any thoughts?
Here is a report that I posted a couple of months ago, so some of this may already be out of date. Perhaps, someone can update this info:
I spoke with a knowledgeable ARNAV representative
about the ICDS 2000. A concern of owners is the uplink of weather information. The weather uplink is being considered by Cirrus this month at one of its semiannual product improvement opportunities. This is the opportunity Cirrus uses to incorporate new options into its product, such as the DR-100, the transceiver from ARNAV that will allow the uplink of NEXRAD weather (refreshes every 10 minutes) and flight information services from ground-based VHF stations.
Weather information is currently available for much of the east coast with Florida and Virginia as two stand-out states for coverage due to special two-way applications (flight following) for life support helicopters supported by that industry in Florida and by the State of Virginia.
The DR-100 transceiver will be available soon as a result of the product improvement opportunities either in October or after the second meeting. In any event, the DR-100 is a reality soon to occur in either a kit form for off-site installation or as a Cirrus option. By next summer, ARNAV believes it will be an option for us (#235). The cost for the transceiver is approximately $1,500, but will include the first year’s subscription
service, valued at $500 a year. Digital data without graphics, such as METAR’s and TAF’s will be available for free without a subscription. The FAA system involving a new format, the VDL mode 2, that purports to provide a weather data refresh rate of every five minutes is currently undefined and no such receiver exists. If and when it exists, ARNAV will support it.
ARNAV will be issuing a press release next week [October] on the availability of a new uplink weather system via satellite. [This press release may now be on the ARNAV site] The certified receiver, weighing 4-5 lbs., will provide nation-wide coverage costing around $10,000. You will pay for what you use, rather than pay a subscription rate (except a nominal rate). It will have telephone and email capability. This option will be presented to Cirrus at the next meeting. This capability is in response to competitors offering satellite-based
weather capability. In my opinion, this is the way Cirrus should go – you’d have nationwide coverage for the price of a Stormscope.
ARNAV does not intend to provide lightning data as one of its uplinked weather products due to the perishable nature of that information. They believe that the NEXRAD images can be used for weather avoidance, including determining probable areas of lightning. Where there’s heavy rain in the summertime in Florida, there’s lightning too, for example.
ARNAV, I’m convinced, is making its best effort in this fast-changing arena, especially in the weather area. The satellite-based uplink is really the best way to go and with the soon to be announced product they will have seized upon the ability to distribute weather information nationwide.
If and when real time weather is available for your Cockpit display, there will be at least two draw backs: 1. A subscriber fee, and 2. You will only get the information available on the ground, which includes clowds and precip, but not lightning. Yopu can get the precip info from the ATC; having real time lightning info can enable you to cross a front through rain, confident there is little likelihood of a lightning strike.
Have any of you decided to include the Stormscope in your SR20 or 22? I am trying to justify spending $9,500 to add a Stormscope to my SR22 (#204), when ARNAV will offer real-time weather uplink soon. Any thoughts?
Query: Is the proposed “real time” uplink truly current, as-you-see-it weather, or is it expected to be delayed “recent time” similar to Intellicast or Nexrad info we now get via the internet? I have a recollection from AOPA Pilot that it is the latter.
Pete
I spoke with ARNAV several times on this issue. Real time weather radar will not be uplinked. There contract with the FAA says that it can not be more than 15 minutes old, ie, the same as Intellecast. My number is 186 and I had to make a decision this past August. I chose to go with the Stormscope. I was convinced it would be a couple of years before ARNAV would offer full coverage in the US below 10,000 feet.
Steve
If and when real time weather is available for your Cockpit display, there will be at least two draw backs: 1. A subscriber fee, and 2. You will only get the information available on the ground, which includes clowds and precip, but not lightning. Yopu can get the precip info from the ATC; having real time lightning info can enable you to cross a front through rain, confident there is little likelihood of a lightning strike.
Have any of you decided to include the Stormscope in your SR20 or 22? I am trying to justify spending $9,500 to add a Stormscope to my SR22 (#204), when ARNAV will offer real-time weather uplink soon. Any thoughts?
Query: Is the proposed “real time” uplink truly current, as-you-see-it weather, or is it expected to be delayed “recent time” similar to Intellicast or Nexrad info we now get via the internet? I have a recollection from AOPA Pilot that it is the latter.
Pete