Does anyone have a Lancair IVP that they've installed a WX-500 Stormscope in

that they can say honestly works?



Lancair Avionics installed mine.  It is controlled by my Sandel unit and I

cannot say it ever really worked.  I can have it displayed on the Sandel,

Garmin 430 or Avrotek Avidyne Flight Monitor.



  Initially, I just got alot of noise artifact.  I worked with the Lancair

Avionics fellow who installed it and have been out to Oregon for my anuals

and have worked on ensuring the unit is grounded putting an aluminum mesh

down in the floor of the tail.  I have a static wick system installed on the

plane but cannot say that it works as there is no fraying of the ends of the

static wicks but there is leading edge tiny wing and horiz. stab. paint

craters forming when in IMC.  It is at times like that that I have had two

OAT probes fail and twice the rudder indicator in my panel fail and once

full right deflection alert ammeter readings.  Static zaps over my headset

are an occasional norm and have been associated with diodes burning out in

my Frantz annunciator DPU such that I have simply pulled it and hooked the

cables up end to end to have an annunciator system without the audio stuff.

I have tried running grounding cables from my fuselage to my wings and wings

to control hinges where my static wick system is located and this has

cleaned up the stormscope artifact to some degree but it still has alot much

of the time and I get "Sensor Error" about half the time in flight where it

won't give me any information at all.  

My unit is in with the BFG people now and they say it is OK and that it

sounds like it is the noise in these composite planes that I am going to

have to deal with to get it to work.  They say the unit sends a test strike

to the antenna every 3 seconds and something in the way of overwhelming

noise must be interfering with its interrogating test causing it to give the

Sensor Error.  My cables are not coiled or bundled with other cables but my

Ryan TCAD and WX 500 do sit side by side in my tail floor just aft my main

wheel wells.  

 I have had the plane skin mapped by Kirk Hammersmith and located the dome

antenna accordingly but that is with the plane stationary on the ground and

everything on.  That is not moving, esp. thru moisture with static build up

in the wings.  I am told that the voltage that these planes can build flying

thru the air is considerable and indeed if you exit the plane and touch one

of the little paint crater areas after such a flight it shocks like the

biggest kick you can generate with your rubber soled shoes on a carpet.  I

am concerned about the long term structural damage from continuing to fly

and discharging into the atmosphere that such activity might lead to with my

carbon structure let alone appearance.

I would appreciate any insight or help from any one who can help me solve

this problem.  I cannot say that when I have flown and been in range of a

thunderstorm on my stormscope that it has reliably shown it.



Ben Welch

N61BW

200 hours.

benjamin.welch [at] carle.com