Radar for Light Aircraft

But in the main, your average singles pilot is always looking for something, anything, to help him make like the big boys in RPT; he’s always looking for some new knob with which to play, some new gadget to hang on his aircraft.

Privately, we feel it’s a small shame, reminding us of the traumas experienced by wartime designers who produced a magnificent flying machine, only to find it festooned like some berserk Christmas tree with excrescences thought up by the boffins.

Ask any ex-Fleet Air Arm pilot what we mean by that . . .

Be all this as it may, there’s another optional extra looming large on the Australian flying horizon – airborne radar for single-engine aircraft.

A dealer canvas has brought to light that weather radar for singles is already a goer in other parts of the world; however, with the wing/airframe mods needed to fit the equipment, most distributors/dealers in this country prefer the customer to ask for radar at the outset, and have the gear installed at factory phase.

We list some of the new radars available (not necessarily in Australia) and admit that at the time of going to print some of the material requested from outlets in Australia hadn’t landed on our desk. So the list is incomplete . . .

WeatherSync:

This radar, inspired by Dr Jim Lemke – latterly a physicist with a recording head production company and now President of his own firm, Aerolift, is aimed at a specific primary target, the Bonanza singles family.

WeatherSync, according to Lemke, came about by accident; it grew from a separate project for an electronically controlled Bonanza turbocharger system.

With the turbocharger job, there was space left after mods in the Bonanza’s nose section and forward of the firewall, for mounting other gear.

Using his own aircraft as a guinea pig, Lemke got down to work. The result was what some Australian pilots have already seen and lusted after – a chin-mounted radar “tiring” through the prop via a 10-inch RCA plate.

Lemke designed a radome to fit the high-performance plate and mounted the lot in the Banana’s nose, giving it nothing more than a slightly pugnacious appearance and doing nothing in airflow destruction.

Electronic circuitry times the digital double-pulse from Lemkes WeatherSync, firing through the prop blades like a Space-Age interrupter gear, allowing a full 200nm range without significant distortion.

Positioning the gear involves taking out the redundant 25 lb lead ballast specified as a stock specification in the Bonanza, putting in the gear with minimal airframe changes – and then going fly the thing.

We understand the computer box weigh weight ounces, the receiver/transmitter (R/T) unit sits in a cabinet on the left firewall and is cooled by ram air taken from near the cowl inlet.

Lemke’s Bonanza has the “picture” unit mounted under the power console, on the cabin floor facing upwards. It apparently makes for a Head Down Display, but it’s glare-free. One can place the visual display unit on the panel – if you’ve room among your other gadgetry.

RCA is tipped to sell, service and warrant WeatherSync worldwide. Cessna singles are also tipped to be next in line for Lemke’s genius.

The unit looks good from where we sit – the only snag is that if you want one, you have to install the revised induction system to make room for the thing.

RCA WeatherScout 1:

RCA have big ideas for this one, an in-wing weather radar with range scales from 90 miles through 60, 30 and 12.

The big snag about in-wing radar has been limitations in antenna design because of the restricted leading edge space. Quite obviously, a too-big dish would need major aerofoil rejigging and turn out to be a non-cost-effective exercise unless one had more money than sense.

RCA have gone the only way – they have improved receiver sensitivity.

WeatherScout has been flying in a Piper Lance, which points the way to the first type to be fitted (and approved) for the radar.

The equipment weighs under 13 lb and early reports indicate the recommended selling price of around $US5495.

RCA was, at last report, working on certification for, not only the Lance, but Bonanzas, Cessna singles (Turbo and Pressurised Centurions) and the normally-aspirated Lance.

WeatherScout 2, a later version of the RCA product, uses a parabolic dish up to 12in diameter. This increases range to 120nm but has to be housed in a conventional nose mount on twins or in a wing pod radome housing similar to those used on Cessna and Beech singles, and the Cessna Skymaster.

WeatherScout 2 was last heard of marketing for about $US5885. Wing mod costs are so far unsighted.

Each model has a digital cockpit display showing precipitation in four intensity levels.

Bendix RDR-160:

Bendix opened up the field of single-engine radar installation with their RDR-150 after they, together with the other leaders, had experimented for some time with small-aircraft radar housings.

Bendix repackaged their 150 in an under-wing package and called it the RDR-160. Waveguide routing has been overcome by connecting the R/T unit to the cockpit indicator by simple cables; the older method of having a distortion-prone distance between R/T and antenna with a waveguide as the link has been overcome by siting the R/T immediately behind the antenna, in the same underwing pod.

The Cessna Skymaster has been flying with this array, quite successfully. The same pod is available for the Centurion. Reinforcement of the wing structure is needed, according to reports, so Wichita prefer customers to ask for radar while their aircraft is still in the factory.

The Bonanza’s available package is mounted in a leading-edge “pimple” on the aircraft’s right side. Colour is available.

According to test reports, these installations incur a three-knot performance loss in cruise mode.

Ryan Stormscope:

We have received little or no information on this device, apart from the usual ads in aviation journals.

Paul Ryan did a lot of homework on wind shear and its alleged association with electrical activity and came up with his Stormscope. All we know about this one is that it offers 360 degrees of coverage of thunderstorms, can be installed in any aircraft, has a range-topping 200nm and operates on a visual computer-type display circular screen.

AADR has so far received no further information – so we can’t tell you cost, place of installation in the aircraft or availability in Australia.

Collins WXR-150:

While we await further information on the Collins range, it appears safe to say that Collins’ WXR-150 digital weather radar will find its way into sophisticated singles’ instrument panels.

Claimed to be the smallest digital radar on the market, the WXR-150 has a 120nm range, a “Hold” mode, and an indicator projecting only 8½in behind the panel.

Using a 12 in dish antenna, the WXR- 150 is priced to compete with either products which use analog units.

The Future:

A whole new generation of indicators is likely to evolve, using LED systems as developed in Japan on TV sets. Thus one will be able to select systems which are almost flat, without long projections behind the panel.

AADR knows it has only touched the surface in this article, and many more systems are currently under development – but we’ve provided a talking point and a directional finger to the future.