Radar question for the high fliers

[Katamarino]

A recent flight in the C182 took me from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Surat Thani, Thailand, about 1,200nm. Most of this was over empty sea, and there were bits and pieces of convection around.

I watched my ADS-B and could see airliners flying up above. I asked a couple, heading in my direction, if they could let me know what was on radar up ahead.

Can a jet's radar see much of what's going on at FL100 from all the way up there? Can they "point it downwards" or something?

 

[Greg Bockelman]

Yes. There is a tilt control on the radar. They can point it down.

 

[Kritchlow]

Plus most of our radars can scan any particular altitude.
That said, flying in certain regions without radar is inadvisable imo.

 

[Sluggo63]

Plus most of our radars can scan any particular altitude.
That said, flying in certain regions without radar is inadvisable imo.

Hello ITCZ!

 

[Maxnr]

The tilt control is most important. A guy named Archie Trammell used to give seminars back in the stone age on radar. I did not attend. Had to get up to speed by trial and error. Mr T developed a formula to calculate cloud tops using the tilt control. This was before they invented the vertical profiling radar feature. I used this procedure often. Man! don't ask me now how to do it.

 

[danhagan]

Mr T developed a formula to calculate cloud tops using the tilt control.

And here I thought he just drove a van for the A-Team