FS Meteo v5.2 troubles...again.....

[Guest Joshieca]

Ok, I am on a flight from RNO (Reno) to PDX (Portland). I am using FS Meteo and my settings are as follows: Destination to Adv Distance 70 SM, Destination Lock Distance 70 SM, Online Refresh 20 mins, have the Set Airport Destination checked and activated for KPDX.So my flight was uneventful until I started to get vectored into Portland. At about 80NM the ATC vectors me to RNY 28L. At about 70 miles I checked the ATIS for Portland, the ATIS is "Charlie" L/D aircraft use RNY 28L, so far all is well. At about 45 miles I check the ATIS again. This time its info "Delta" L/D aircraft use RNY 28L. Ok the report has changed but the runway is still the same. Fine. At about 30 miles I check it again, its now info "Fox Trot" and the runway in use is now 10R. Meanwhile ATC vectors me to ILS 28L and I have to declare a miss and go around to 10R.So what gives? How can within a period of under 20 mins FS Meteo update and change the ATIS three times when it shouldn't? What settings am I miss here? Does this program have a way to tell it to STOP downloading metar info when your within "X" miles of the airport? (I thought thats what the Set Aiport was for??)Thanks in advance.[br][br][div align=center][br][link:members.cox.net/fstimes/wetimage.html]Click Here For Weather Image of the Day!

[Guest]

That is and has been a well documented fault with FSMeteo since the release of FS2002 and has been a constant thorn in my side.Check out activesky (as I did) and all those problems will go away.I predict that activesky is shortly going to surpass FSMeteo, an indication that good quality freeware is thriving!

[Guest Dave March]

I've been using ActiveSky since it first appeared and think it's excellant. However, I'm still have the same problem at some airports that Joshieca reported, so I guess the problem goes deeper than the actual weather generator.CheersDave March

[Guest KenG]

The fault of updated ATIS identifiers is between FSMeteo and FS2002. Everytime FSMeteo updates the weather info, FS2002 assigns it a new identifier (e.g., Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.). That makes no difference though as it is a VERY minor problem. In this instance, what time was it? Realize that the weather info is usually updated every hour (sometimes more often). If you check the weather at 50 minutes after the hour and then again at 10 minutes after the next hour, you will probably see some differences. That's probably what happened in this case.By locking the weather to your destination, FSMeteo will feed the current weather for your destination to the ATIS within 70 miles (user configurable). You will actually not SEE that weather until you are closer (again, user configurable).What likely happened is that FSMeteo updated the weather and got the latest (and different from previous) weather info. That's the cause of the RW change. The changes in weather may take a while if you have long transitions set in either FSMeteo or FSUIPC. If you don't want this to happen, then you will have to STOP FSMeteo. Otherwise, it is performing as advertised.

[Guest Joshieca]

Basically I like the idea of having the most current weather while flying, but when it comes down to landing, I want to have it remain the same from I guess about 90 miles out to the landing site.So what should I set the updates and the weather transitions set to?

[Guest]

Basically I like the idea of having the most current weather while flying, but when it comes down to landing, I want to have it remain the same from I guess about 90 miles out to the landing site.Why? That wouldn't make it more real, it would make it less real. In real life winds can change at the drop of a dime. Why would you want to make this simulator less real?

[Damian Clark 1,107]

Hi,Having the weather remain consistent during approach and landing may not be the most realistic thing, but it is much more realistic than having ATC give you instructions for the wrong runway most of the time.The problem is that ATIS and ATC use the current surface weather AS SET to determine runway info. If your winds change (highly likely) after you get initial approach vectors then you will experience this problem. The destination force feature of ActiveSky solves this problem by forcing all weather to the LIVE, CURRENT destination weather within the specified range (default 60nm), except for wind speed which will be simulated for upper altitude realism, but the direction will remain the same as the destination. Now, if the destination METAR report is updated while you are within the force range, and the winds DO CHANGE to favor the alternate runway, then ATC will switch runways too. This is exactly how it would happen in real life (although it would happen more real-time and not as the result of a METAR update). The force range option simply forces to THAT STATION, not to THAT REPORT. The station won't change but the report most certainly can.I suspect that is what is happening... In real life ATC is more intelligent (some might argue this!) and won't clear you for an ILS and then all of a sudden tower clears you for the wrong runway. They will instead give you 'wind updates' and let YOU decide if you want to continue on that runway or not, but the default approach clearance will usually be carried out, and at some time APPROACH will start vectoring new aircraft for the other runway.I am not sure if using ActiveSky will solve your problem or not but it is worth a shot I guess. I am not familiar with FSMETEO but I understand it is an excellent program and should be able to handle this just as well. Perhaps there is some option you are missing?-Damian

[Guest]

Having the weather remain consistent during approach and landing may not be the most realistic thing, but it is much more realistic than having ATC give you instructions for the wrong runway most of the timeFly on VATSIM, problem solved ;-) Using FS2002 ATC is futile ;-)

[Guest KenG]

FSMeteo has had this option for a long time. It's called Station Lock or Destination Lock (or something similar, I'm not at my home computer and cannot remember). Anyway, it does it just as described and as I described in the above post.

[Guest]

FSMeteo has had this option for a long time. It's called Station Lock or Destination Lock That's what he said he was using ;-))

[Guest KenG]

The other day, I was doing practice approaches in the evening. Here in Florida, we get lots of lovely evening showers and resulting gust fronts. Well, guess what, after about 1 hr of doing approaches a big shower was approaching and the winds at KLAL switched from direction by almost 180

[Guest Joshieca]

>Why? That wouldn't make it more real, it would make it less >real. In real life winds can change at the drop of a dime. >Why would you want to make this simulator less real? It's NOT real life when you're 10 miles from the airport and approach ATC is clearing your for XY runway and the tower wants you to go to YX.Even in real life you NEVER get vectored to one runway and have the tower tell you "I am sorry you need to go around because we had our heads up our tails and forgot to tell approach that we were switching runways around." I enjoy having the weather updated constantly. If I could I would have it do it in real time. But its very frustrating to be lined up for landing and then when your just about to hit the glide slope have tower tell you to go to the other end. To me that's NOT as real as it gets!There has to be a better way around this.

[Guest Joshieca]

My question isn't why this is happening...I know whats happening and whats causing it...I just want to see if theres a way to stop it and still have the weather updated during the flight.I just wish that these weather downloaders had a way to say OK your "XX" miles from the airport. No more updates will be issued. Something that simple, were it would stop the downloads of the METAR's while yo are in the airports airspace would be nice.

[Guest etanin]

Why dont you just shut down FSmeteo when you get close to your airport. I beleve the current weather will stay in FS.

[Guest]

Yeah, just close fsmeteo, but again, why? That makes it very unrealistic.