I am throwing in the towel on Active Sky. I was cruising at 16000 in a pretty cool business jet, and all of a sudden I got hit with a down draft that caused me to loose 6000 feet and I lost total control of the jet and couldn't recover with full back pressure. After about what seemed like 30 seconds, I was able to recover. What is that all about?ERRATIC WX BEHAVIOR. I was also porposing for no reason. No A/I traffic in front of me on landing.. What is this all about!Thanks for the frustration!Barry

"Thanks for the frustration!"Tell me, how much did you pay for it? You know, the other day I received an email from a user regarding my landclass assistant program. The poor baby was complaining that he had to search for the FS2000 Terrain SDK....god forbid, I didn't include a link in my documentation (unintentional on my part) and he had to do some work. I told him where he could go--and yes, he does frequent this forum quite often.My point--issues can be found with freeware. We don't get paid for it. Sometimes, odd things happen that can cause us to be frustrated and give up. Fine.... Just show some class, and don't make a public spectacle about it. That there's a support forum at all for a free utility I find quite generous. That freeware authors don't always have the answers--sometimes we're just too busy with our day jobs. And to add to Jeroen's post in the main FS forum, I was flying to MN four years ago, and just past Colorado Springs, hit some clear air turbulence. We lost 5000 feet in seconds--tray carts floated mid air, along with flight attendants, drinks, and one unlucky passenger who had a severe hip bruise from crashing into an armrest. It happens....

It is called Clear air Turbulence. It happens in real life!!

And examples of microburst on final approach:A Martinair DC-10 crashed at Faro about 10 (?) years ago, killing all or most on board. Cost: 200+ dead.Hong Kong Chep Lak Kok was constructed in probably the worst location possible for microburst. So bad it is there that special detection equipment has been developed and installed there to provide advance warning so ATC can warn pilots if microburst are likely to happen. Cost: millions but so far no loss of life.

What's Fs Mateo? Some sort of simmers dating site?Gavin

hehe. He means FSMeteo, another weather program.

Sorry it is FS Meteo... Slip of the keys..There are just too many weird weather scenarios possibly caused by Active Sky that are too randomized and don't really apply to the current weather.(Knock on wood) I have hit turbulance when flying, even the tubulance in Active Sky is predictable and not randomized as it should be (this may be due to FS 2K2 weather model). I have never seen a jet take a 6000 ft drop like that. I am not saying it can't happen, just not likely.Also, on the same flight I started to Porpoise which has to be weather related. No other A/I planes on final.And I am running Wide FS and I think the preformance of AS is poor and it appears to be causing other data using the WideFS pipe not to be updated properly (this is just speculation, but I won't have a chance to prove it (Unless the problems go away) because I am switching to FS MEteo.Some of the features of Active Sky I really liked, but the above situations caused by AS are enough to ditch it and use FS Meteo.I am going to purchase FS Flight Max and it interfaces with FS Meteo.I did get some enjoyment from Active Sky, and will report back to this forum if I determine that Active Sky is not the source of the problem. The jury is still out. To be fair, I need to compare apples to apples!Barry

Barry,The latest versions of FSUIPC and WIDEFS have been causing some problems with other applications.This was due to a change from Timer based settings to FPS based settings. Pete Dowson is aware of these problems and will hopefully have a solution to them fairly soon.I have heard of the latest version of WIDEFS not updating quickly enough, and then updating really fast to catch up with the point is should have been at.I would hazard a guess that this may be the problem, and that FSMeteo would cause the same problems for you as ActiveSky seems to be.Mark

Hey Mark,We shall see if WideFS is actually the problem...Thanks for the feedback!Barry

Enough of the grandstanding already! You've even posted this premature slander in the main FS2K2 forum before giving Damian a chance to respond to your technical issue(s).If this is your normal behaviour, then I guess you'll be poo pooing FS Meteo once you cross the two issue threshold. Then what are you going to use for weather??

Greetings Barry,Ouch!Thanks for letting us all know... Haven't heard of a 6000ft altitude drop "problem" - this is nothing simulated in wxRE. Perhaps you have another problem with another add-on, or you experienced striking an AI aircraft when having crash with dynamic scenery turned off (airspeed goes to zero, you start dropping - this is how FS2002 does it).Porposing for no reason.. again, don't see how AS can cause this! But I would be happy to look into this for you. If you can share with me some good information and can confirm this is a real problem I will definitely fix it! But to me at this point it sounds like you're frustrated with another issue with your setup (that wxRE is not causing - at least from the little information you have given) and for some reason are choosing to blame wxRE and publically express this "blame". No reason for that now is there? Sorry if I am misreading you. If you want support or have input let's hear it, but please keep the slander out of here. Thank you!-DamianP.S. in advance to all the "What, can't handle negative comments?" responses, note that comments good or bad are always welcome, but not when their obvious purpose is to slander or harm the image of the product or the authors, and offer no helpful information to the users, would-be-users, or developers.[table border=0" cellspacing="30" cellpadding="0][tr][td align = "left"]Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyThe next-generation weather environment simulation for FS2002!http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky[/td][td]http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg][/td][/tr][/table://http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/ima...][/tr][/table

I agree with Damian all the way. I deleted FS METEO off of my hard drive because of too many issues with it and the author of it. I find Damian to be caring and generous with his support and responses. He is helpful and nice about it. Wait till you have an issue with FS METEO and try to deal with Marc, the author, for 3 times the cost you will have 25 times the headaches. I find AS to be a good program, and I am sure getting better all the time, it already has features that FS METEO can't dream about, and will never have, such as Wake Turb. Do not slam AS till you give it a chance, and at least let Damain try to help you, if he will at this point, and if not, I wouldn't blame him. :-) Good luck to you and FS METEO I know I will NEVER EVER go back to that product again, at least not in THIS lifetime. :-)Gary Hall

I second this; it is not fair to beat up WXre when there is no proof that WXre is really causing this behavior. (at least, I did not have this problem before unless landing with a cessna just behind a jet airliner when I got hit by wake turbulence.) and it is even unfair to post this in another forum first (if that is true) before informing the author. just my 2cCheersPhilCome to DAD!http://www.dangerous-airports.com/images/dad_logo.jpgAMD XP 2700+, 512 MB, ASUS A7N8X, GF4 440, 17" TFT

If u think it is not fair to beat up Active Sky here, which I would accept I have no idea how u can post that stuff about FSMeteo here, especially as Marc is not very likely to defend hmself here in this forum.Just my 2 cents.Alex

>I am throwing in the towel on Active Sky. I was cruising at >16000 in a pretty cool business jet, and all of a sudden I >got hit with a down draft that caused me to loose 6000 feet >and I lost total control of the jet and couldn't recover >with full back pressure. After about what seemed like 30 >seconds, I was able to recover. What is that all about? With a little more information, we might be able to tell you "What is that all about." What was your Indicated Airspeed when it happened? What were the winds-aloft? I have had a problem before where I was disconnected from the Internet while AS was updating winds-aloft. Wind speed dropped to zero (from a headwind of 100+kts), and obviously I dropped like a stone. This (IMO) is not the fault of AS -- it's the fault of my crappy delapidated Internet connection (best I can get out here in the boonies).>ERRATIC WX BEHAVIOR. I was also porposing for no reason. >No A/I traffic in front of me on landing.. What is this all >about! As for porpoising, I've encountered this with certain aircraft with AND without AS running. I certainly hope I'm not the first to tell you, but some panels just SUCK! Some panel's autopilots SUCK! Try using a Baron 58 panel with a 737, and you'll see LOTS of wonderful performance anomolies (if you're even able to start the engines), but this can't possibly be blamed on AS. What panel are/were you using, and what aircraft were you flying? I've noticed severe porpoising using the FS2k2's 737 panel with some 757 models, and the same goes for using the FS2k2 737 panel with the 767's.You're free, of course, to return to FS-Meteo, and save yourself the real-life concerns of wake-turbulence and the use of TAF's. If such things scare you too much, perhaps you should just stick to the FS2k2 "Real weather download" and throw away your copies of both AS and FSM. Then you won't need to worry about the weather messing-up your flights (if only they could do that in real-life)...~ Andy SutterMA825/KSFO (Meridian VA)kZAU ARTCC