Well I decided to take my First Delta Virtual Airline Flight today and thought that Atlanta to Palm Beach (KPBI) with Active Sky might be a real challenge, due to the Hurricane approaching Florida. When I started out the winds at PBI were around 25 knots gusting to 35 so I thought that didn't sound totally impossible, so off I went. Until I got down to the Vero Beach area, the skys were fairly good and the radar showed very little activity . As I went south of Vero, the radar started filling up with dark green and red so I knew it was getting nasty. I was vectored by ATC onto the ILS for 27R and about 18 out I intercepted the ILS with all the intentions of hand flying most of it. Not much air traffic today, apparently not too many crazy people willing to fly into PBI. Then as the turbulence built up on the ILS, I noticed that my magnetic heading was about 15 degrees higher than the ILS heading of 271. Hmm bit of a crosswind. Checked the airport weather on my Active Radar screen and wind was 340/36 gusts to 49... Yeow!!! Time to switch on autopilot number 2 and see how this Autoland function works cause today is not a " Fly by Hand day" on the ILS, and I don't want to have a crash on my first Virtual Airline Flight with a new Company. I broke out at 1,000 feet AGL and saw the runway out of the left part of the cockpit window. The nose of the aircraft appeared to be pointed at some buildings. Now I am debating, should I grab the controls and see if I can crab it in, ( don't have rudder pedals yet, so the flare and touchdown should be a real adventure) and I then thought that this is what autoland is set up for ( well maybe not for a crosswind that exceeds the crosswind capability of the aircraft), but it probably would do a better job than I would. So I rode it down to the ground. It sounded like something disconnected just as we touched down , and we bounced back up into the air. That's it, I'm grabbing the controls now. I steered to the right, dropped the nose a bit and we were down for good, on the left side of the runway. How the landing gear ever stood up to that abuse is beyond me ( good PMDG-Boeing construction I would guess). As I taxied onto the taxiway, I noticed that the aircraft was rocking from the winds, which apparently were pretty rough, even for a 737. Now I have got to find a hanger to park this thing in until the storm blows over.

Good thing our plane can make it... i'm one of the millions of evacuees.I hope my house survives. :)

I did a flight from KMIA to MYNN yesterday. The descend had it all! :D Windshears, severe storm cells, everything! But the NG handled it well! on final the wind was around 35-40 knots, gusting to well over 70 knots in periods! As i said the plane handled it all very well all the way until touchdown where the wind seemed to have stabilized on 72 knots. Seemed that was... fifty feet above the runway it suddeny decreased to 35 knots again, thus removing most of the lift and sent the plane down for a firm landing to say the least!:-8 Well, i need to get back to the plane now to remove the landing gear struts that got stuck in the cabin roof! :DRgdsKevin

Bob,Please hand over your virtual FAA licence this instant. :(Hope your house still stands trong Marc.

>Bob,>>Please hand over your virtual FAA licence this instant. :(>>Hope your house still stands trong Marc.>>>Hey, any landing you can walk away from is a successful landing :)

Did anyone think to save the AS2004 wx file for the area impacted by the hurricane? Cheers,George

I am in Jacksonville,Fl and not in the full path and we are having 60-80 mph winds and alot of rain,I work for the fire dept here and I am now into my 2ed part of 48 straight hours.I wish I had FS9 on the computer here.Marc I hope all is well where you live. JeffG

>Did anyone think to save the AS2004 wx file for the area>impacted by the hurricane? >>Cheers,>GeorgeI saved it 3 different times, about 12 hours apart. That should keep me busy for months.

Thanks All for using our product along with PMDG. Just remember that all weather is archived and ready to be used any time in the future!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

>Thanks All for using our product along with PMDG. Just>remember that all weather is archived and ready to be used any>time in the future!>>Hope this helps,>Jim>ActiveSky Support>http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpgWhat was really neat, is I made two flights this morning crossing the Florida Peninsula. On both flights I could very clearly see the "eye" of the storm on the Active Radar.

Hi JimAllow me a "stupid" question: Since I mosly only use AS2K4 for real world weather for the present moment, can I also retrieve for instance this weekend's weather? I mean, do you guys save it on your servers, or do I have to beg some of those guys here that did save it?Thanks,Boaz

Hi,Not a problem! Lucky I came back to this topic! In short, yes you can! Every 6 hours the server archives all the data from the previous 6 hours. Use the Download button, fill in the required information, and click on D/L Archive. So already, all the weather from this past weekend is saved, ready to go.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg