Stormscopes, how useful?

Challenged

Challenged

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Challenged
My new to me airplane has an INOP stormscope in the panel. This is not a device that I've ever flown behind previously, would you get it repaired or install a replacement? What sort of delay will the lightning data that is being pushed in the new ADS-B feeds have?
 
Depends on:
1. Model of the Stormscope - some are not worth fixing. https://www.stormscopes.com/stormscopes.html
2. Type of flying you plan to do. If you don't plan to pick your way through convective you don't need a Stormscope or on-board radar. If you do plan to do that, I wouldn't do it without.
 
The 3M Storm Scope is just as useful as an ADF imho. I wouldn’t repair it. Remove and replace with something of greater value.
 
I actually don't know what model it is, and my plane is still with the mechanic, so I can't swing by to have a look, but I wonder if there's a big box in the tail for this thing that would help with CG, if removing it makes the most sense.
 
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If you are doing much IMC around convective weather, a good stormscope is definitely worthwhile. And it is real time, unlike XM or ADS-B weather.
 
I thought my strikefinder was inop for over two years after I bought it. Then when we were flying in Alaska with some bad looking weather in the distance, our "inop" strikefinder came alive. We could see that there was a ton of lightning activity grater than 25 miles to the northeast, so we detoured to the northwest.

I guess we thought it was inop because down here, we have pretty good forecasting and we don't fly when we expect lightning, so we never see it. I was certainly glad we had it in Alaska. Since then, we have seen it light up twice down here while on a couple of 500 mile legs where we planned to divert around some moving weather patterns.

edit to clarify; my "strikefinder" is actually a WX-10 stormscope. For some reason I got into the habit of calling it a strikefinder.
 
Ryanb said:
The 3M Storm Scope is just as useful as an ADF imho. I wouldn’t repair it. Remove and replace with something of greater value.
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Challenged said:
So don't pull the stormscope and replace it with an ADF? ;)
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Let me rephrase that..

The 3M Storm Scope (specifically the WX-8) is utterly useless imo. Other models may be better, but YMMV.
 
My WX-900 I thought was inop, threw an error code before I bought the plane last summer. I finally looked at the manual a year later to decipher codes and I turned it on and it works, no code. Will keep it on to see if it malfunctions.

Hangar neighbor has an older scope that stopped working. He showed me how he opened his up, popped the integrated circuit off the board, cleaned the board with canned air and the socket with contact cleaner and got his to work again.
 
midwestpa24 said:
If you are doing much IMC around convective weather, a good stormscope is definitely worthwhile. And it is real time, unlike XM or ADS-B weather.
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There no big box. You have the processor/display which weigh 2-3 lb and the antenna. It is real time with excellent directional indication of lightning. Distance accuracy decreases with distance because the unit is calibrated to an average lighting discharge.

Ground based storm scopes are the lightning detection for ASOS.
 
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455 Bravo Uniform said:
My WX-900 I thought was inop, threw an error code before I bought the plane last summer. I finally looked at the manual a year later to decipher codes and I turned it on and it works, no code. Will keep it on to see if it malfunctions.

Hangar neighbor has an older scope that stopped working. He showed me how he opened his up, popped the integrated circuit off the board, cleaned the board with canned air and the socket with contact cleaner and got his to work again.
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Accumulated oil on the antenna maybe?
 
Ryanb said:
Let me rephrase that..

The 3M Storm Scope (specifically the WX-8) is utterly useless imo. Other models may be better, but YMMV.
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Our club has a WX-8 in the 172 I fly. I have never flown near lightning so I can't personally attest to its value but a fellow club member says it works pretty good.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Our club has a WX-8 in the 172 I fly. I have never flown near lightning so I can't personally attest to its value but a fellow club member says it works pretty good.
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Chicken.....:lightning::lightning:


Round thes parts, you wouldn’t fly. Hell, it even lightings when it’s snowing!
 
Yeah. I'm fine with that. I do not have my IR. I do not fly that many long cross country flights. I usually fly just for pleasure and not when I need to be somewhere at a certain time. So I just have not had the reason to be up when there is a bunch of lightning bolts around me. I can find plenty of nice days to fly without it.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Our club has a WX-8 in the 172 I fly. I have never flown near lightning so I can't personally attest to its value but a fellow club member says it works pretty good.
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And that’s possible. Based on the flying that I’ve done ( with TSVC—especially during the summer and on XC’s) I haven’t found it very useful at all, Compared with the equipment that we’re capable of having now (ie., ADS-B with ForeFlight). I think Storm Scopes are more of a thing of the past. Kind of like ADF.
 
Ryanb said:
And that’s possible. Based on the flying that I’ve done ( with TSVC—especially during the summer and on XC’s) I haven’t found it very useful at all, Compared with the equipment that we’re capable of having now (ie., ADS-B with ForeFlight). I think Storm Scopes are more of a thing of the past. Kind of like ADF.
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Yea... while your at it, get rid of that on-board Radar as well. It’s sooooo last decade now that we have ADSB and internet on board.
 
Unit74 said:
Yea... while your at it, get rid of that on-board Radar as well. It’s sooooo last decade now that we have ADSB and internet on board.
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Yeah not was I was meaning, but okay...
 
Ryanb said:
And that’s possible. Based on the flying that I’ve done ( with TSVC—especially during the summer and on XC’s) I haven’t found it very useful at all, Compared with the equipment that we’re capable of having now (ie., ADS-B with ForeFlight). I think Storm Scopes are more of a thing of the past. Kind of like ADF.
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No ADF? How am I supposed to listen to my favorite AM stations?
 
Stormscopes provide you real time info on storms. How good a job it does depends on the model and how well you understand the limitations of what it's showing you. The older models are not nearly as good as the later ones, but better than nothing IF you understand the limitations.

It's another tool to help you understand what's happening outside. No more, no less.
 
SkyDog58 said:
No ADF? How am I supposed to listen to my favorite AM stations?
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Heh!

Like I say, what I’ve stated above is only my experience with using the WX-8. So my opinion is only worth as much as you paid for it.
 
I pull out an inop WX10A and might eventually replace it with a WX-500 (remote mounted to my GTN750).
 
Which would you rather have, onboard radar or a storm scope?

If you have both and the radar shows red but the stormscope is clear, do you fly through it?
 
bluesky74656 said:
Which would you rather have, onboard radar or a storm scope?

If you have both and the radar shows red but the stormscope is clear, do you fly through it?
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To the latter question, short answer is no.

To the first question, they provide quite different information. It's up to the pilot to interpret and integrate it. I've flown with a friend's portable Garmin with XM weather and I am now even more a believer that if you are doing any serious crosscountry the more on board weather info the better. The XM gives a "big picture" that I find useful supplements to the radar and Stormscope.
 
I'll take on board radar all day long....... Nothing better.
 
On board radar for sure. Stormcope is good because it’s real time. ADS-B and xm are great for planning and big picture, but not for working your way through weather. Understand that what you see on nexrad can be up to twenty minutes old.
 
At least the manual for our WX-10 says it can detect the static charges between rising and descending columns of air as they are building. Their claim is it can be used as a tool to avoid the turbulence before the storms are present. I see it light up from time to time when there is no thunderstorm (yet) but I tend to avoid those areas.
We have had the same debate on if we should pull out out of the panel when we do the next upgrade. It is the only real time weather we have in the plane - besides looking out the window.
 
I had one in my previous Tiger and miss it ... could really reach out and see the nasty stuff long before reaching it.
 
I have one and look at it time to time but not real sure of it's capabilities and how to fully exploit them. I would trade it for on board radar any day.
 
I find the Sferics devices are a good complement to ADS-B and XM weather. It can show the azimuth to the storm that you see on XM/ADS-B to where they actually are in real time. It is a tool to then decide how to best circumnavigate the storms. It is not a safe way to penetrate areas of storms. If you want to penetrate active areas of weather and navigate between storms, your only real choice is on board radar, along with experience. Eyeballs are really helpful too.
 
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