Fubar512

1400 HP in an open center-console style boat. What's not to like?

I stumbled onto this old jewel while surfing through Youtube's collection of shooting and firearm-related videos:

To figure that out, one must know the height of the radar, how its mounted (savvy installers place a wedge under the mounting flange to compensate for a boat's running angle), and the vertical beam width (large span open array radar antennas usually have a narrower beam width, than smaller, enclosed dome antennas). One boat that I used to run had a 72-mile radar mounted on it's bridge top. The antenna was about 20 feet above the waterline. On its 12-mile range setting, I used to see smaller, private aircraft departing from a local airport about 6-7 nautical miles away, and at the 36-mile range setting, military transports climbing out of joint base McGuire -Dix-Lakehurst (once they cleared the ground clutter).

An airliner from the size of the return. Too bad it wasn't a video, as opposed to a still, then you'd appreciate how fast the return traverses the display.

It's an aircraft.

Skyviper, you are correct in one respect. You are looking at a heavy rain storm approaching from the vessel's port side. I happen to know that this boat is tied up at its slip in a small marina. Notice the diagonal line near the center of the display ? That's the land and docks in that marina, and in the surrounding area. The target at 8 o'clock traces back from a thin line and then gets "thicker" as it goes along. The antenna sweeps every 3-4 seconds. To make a line like that at that distance (given the sweep interval) requires a bit of headway. Hint: It's not another vessel.

Anyone care to guess what caused the return at the 8 o'clock position on this commercial marine radar display? It's on a 12-mile range setting, so each ring represents 3 miles across. That places the target 4.5-5 nm out from the vessel carrying the radar. Now, I know what it is, from its track (relative to the antenna's sweep period), and by having encountered such targets before.