Hello Pilots!!!As version 1.0 development concludes and we begin to focus on 2.0, I thought I'd start this thread to encourage discussion and feedback about what features our users want to see.As we all know, development of new features takes time and in order to bring a successful add-on to release in a decent time frame we must prioritize.The highest priority I can think of at this point is to integrate wxRE as much as possible with the next version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. It is not certain that FSUIPC will remain a viable means of internal FS control - so development of an alternative FS communication module may be important to the future success of wxRE. This is what I will be working on first. Next will come the new coding to take advantage of FS9's new clouds and weather system. Much better visuals and transitions are expected. I am also working closely with Chris Willis of FSW Group to integrate FS Sky World and the weather environment for incredible visuals that intelligently display and change according to present conditions. Unlimited cloud layers are also planned.Other areas I plan to focus on include improved flight planning, flight plan awareness (and import capability) and ... this is a biggy ... graphical weather planning - where you see a world map, movable and zoomable, with your route and weather info + radar overlayed on top.Voice ATIS and Flightwatch will be improved, and full voice weather briefings are planned. ATIS will be intelligent and require being tuned to the proper frequency depending on the airport/location. Local-specific voice sets will be possible, so you get accents in different parts of the world.Another big priority is private weather servers. It is apparent that public servers are unstable at times and it would be much improved to have control over the stability of data access.The above is my rough outline for development but I would really love to hear what YOU have to say! Let me know what features you feel should be a priority, and feel free to make a wish list! All suggestions will be considered!Thanks in advance for your valuable input!!! -Damian[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

Hi DamianThe first thought that cross my mind when you say private servers is: "Dynamical weather on the servers and not on the clients!". As I'm almost exclusively flies online I think it would greatly enhance the online flying experience as we, the pilots, and the ATC could expect the same weather from every client. I haven't found this to be a problem while flying online (VATSIM) but by arranging the dynamics on servers instead of locally it would be a boost to the weather transitions and dynamics online.Maybe even some kind of joint venture with VATSIM or Joel DeYoung, developer of SB3?The freeware/payware issue could of course be a possible problem :-hmmm Just my two

Damain:1. I think you may want two versions of release 2.0. One a "lite" version for free public WX downloading; and a full Pro version for 'pay as you go' WX from private networks with reliable d/ls.2. Your other anticipated developments sound absolutely amazing - and from what I've seen of MS's new cloud and WX development programming - should really bring even more phenomenal reality to WX. Especially with intelligent ATC to support it! If your projects dove-tail with all that you'll really have an incredible product. :-)3. Sounds like you're venturing into navigation as well, somewhat like FSGarmin intended with overlayed WX on charts/maps and radar. If I've got that right, your WX will then have WX, AI traffic and mNaviagion all from a networked environment.I'd love to see that all bundled into ver 2.0 but would settle for # 3 first. :-)Ron McLeod CYEG

Hi Damian,seems all quite fantastic.As an additional improvement for the offline flying I would like the ability to "force" WMO ID station for winds aloft, the ability to skip "99999" lines in the winds report that cause incorrect behaviour of wxRE,the voice feature able to correctly spell met reports (saying mist, towering cumulus and so on), the ability to correctly handle variable wind conditions. Please let the chance to download wx from public servers, even if they're not always working properly (expecially the radio-saounding NOAA site..).For the rest, thumbs up and good work !Enrico.

Damian,Sounds all very good to me.What I would like: the possibility to print the rout of the flightplan, along with the winds aloft. This would make flightplanning a lot easier. Noting too fancy (no problem with that, but the basic thing would be fine), just the route and its weather.Kind regards,Stephan Haashttp://vatsim.pilotmedia.fi/statusindicato...or=SVA1&a=a.jpg

Hi Enrico thanks for the suggestions... RC3 1.8 fixes the 99999, or at least should, please let me know if it works ok for you now..-Damian[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

>As we all know, development of new features takes time >Other areas I plan to focus on include improved flight>planningPlease do not forget to alphabetize the winds aloft information reported on the Wx Planning page. Its tough finding those 2 or 3 stations along the route to get forecast cruise winds. ;-)Thanks!-michael

Hi Damian,You may have seen elsewhere that I am devoting quite some time helping in the FSFlightMax FSGarmin forum. I hope that the sale of SimSystems two great addons will not mean the end of the outstanding cooperation between you and the Simsystems users. The integration of ActiveSky and FSFlightMax is almost perfect (for those who spend time reading the manuals). I would hate to see further developemnts of ActiveSky ignore FSFlightMax which is still up till now the only reliable weather radar available.I did notice your intention to include improved flight planning and graphical weather display. Here I would like to throw a couple of thoughts. 1. On the flight planning. I guess you refer to the addition of wind speed and direction for each leg of a flight. Here I could see a fit with FSBuild. If not already done may I suggest you talk to the developper of FSBuild who is working on a new version to the effect that weather datas can be imported in FSBuild and added to each leg of a flight plan before it is converted to the appropriate aircraft FMS format. I mention FSBuild because of the wide range of FMS and flight plan formats it can handle.2. About the graphical weather planning I assume all kind of information could be made visible at the users choice as far as flight datas are concerned. Moving maps are already widely available but none sofar integrate graphical weather representations. Quickmap of Project Magenta may be a good candidate for an integrated export of weather datas.3. My idea here is more of generic type when it comes to the "image" of the weather datas. The format if possible wheather BMP of TIFF or else should remain in an extractable form for export to ND's. Can you imagine if it was possible to get all the graphical weather information generated by the new ActiveSky in the PIC 767 ND or the PSS Airbus ND or any other aircraft instead of the black background. I am not sure all this makes sense to you. If you have time make some comments and I will try to develop my thoughts.Michael

>Hi Damian,>>1. On the flight planning. I guess you refer to the addition>of wind speed and direction for each leg of a flight. Here I>could see a fit with FSBuild. If not already done may I>suggest you talk to the developper of FSBuild who is working>on a new version to the effect that weather datas can be>imported in FSBuild and added to each leg of a flight plan>before it is converted to the appropriate aircraft FMS format.>I mention FSBuild because of the wide range of FMS and flight>plan formats it can handle.>Hi Micheal,Though I've never talked with Damian this feature is implemented in Fsbuild 2.0It will read the winds aloft data from ActiveskyWxRe and apply them to each leg of the flight plan. This will affect the aircraft's calculated speed, enroute time, and fuel consumption. The wind corrected heading is also displayed in the Navlog.Fsbuild will use the winds from the closest weather station reported in the ActiveSky online or offline winds file.Regards.Ernie.http://www.fsbuild.com/fsbas1.jpg

>Other areas I plan to focus on include improved flight planning, flight plan awareness (and import capability) and ... this is a biggy ... graphical weather planning - where you see a world map, movable and zoomable, with your route and weather info + radar overlayed on top.Wow on the latter. This is what was promised with the Garmin 530 - FSAvionics (complete with nice pictures) - and not delivered. Would be a great addition.

Hi Michael and Damian,Talking about the combination of FSFlightmax/Garmin and WXre I could not help to feel like an "idiot". Since I have read the manuals for both and tried many different configuration settings and still have a little bug in the system somewhere. I might add that to complicate things I am running the FSMax and Garmin on a remote PC. It seems that the only way to get the current weather into Max is by opening the FS weather after it is downloaded by ActiveSky and then without making any changes close it again.In Max I do have the exported file expmetXXXX.met with the current date but the radar screen stays black until I go through the steps above.Long story short, I hope that V2.0 would be a little more specific in the readme as far as the settings on each program and PC are concerned for a remote setup. I know I am not the only one having trouble with this. Aside from that I can't say nothing but good things about either addon ;-)Happy LandingsSunny

Hi Ernie,Well it does it isn't it? My thought was a little out of the blue when Damian started this thread about a future version of ActiveKsy. Anyway well done again Ernie. Since I have not found a dedicated forum for FSBild I will raise a couple of things here. (Damian don't be upset please...) First, and this is related to weather datas. I noticed in your sample picture that you integrate weather conditions a the airport of departure. KABL shows a -4 wind. Here two unrelated questions: 1. Do you have implemented a routine which will automatically warn the user if the wind speed and direction make a safe take off on the choosen runway impossible? 2. If yes are you going that far to automatically suggest a different runway and if applicable the corresponding SIDs?Sorry I did not get a chance to be beta tester for FSBuild so my questions may be outdated as was my first thought.Last but not least I would like to pre-order FSBuild even in a beta form but there is no mention of order forms at your site. Can you help on this one.MichaelMichael

Hi Micheal,There is a forum dedicated to Fsbuild at fsbuild.com on the left frame under support, ciick on the 'fsbuild forum' link.>KABL shows a -4 wind. Here two unrelated questions: >>1. Do you have implemented a routine which will automatically warn the user if the wind speed and direction make a safe take off on >the choosen runway impossible? The -4 is not necessarily the surface wind forecast, it could be for 5000 ft, it may not even be for that airport. It's selecting the closest weather reporting station listed in the downloaded winds file wherever that is (it could be 100 nm away). That value is used as the forecasted value between the departure and the first waypoint in this case 94 nm.You'd want to use the METAR report in ActiveSkyWxRe to get the the surface winds for KALB.>2. If yes are you going that far to automatically suggest a >different runway and if applicable the corresponding SIDs?In Fsbuild 2.0 these choices are always left up to you, the Pilot. The program doesn't advise you what to do, it simply displays the results of whatever choices you make WRT route planning. You won't see any error messages telling you something is incorrect, if it was manually selected by you.>Last but not least I would like to pre-order FSBuild even in a beta >form but there is no mention of order forms at your site. Can you >help on this one.There is no pre-order system available, it will be available at simmarket.com. There's a good chance it will be there sometimenext week. I'l make sure to send out press releases to avsim, and the other sites when it is available.Regards.Ernie.

Thanks Ernie for all this. I will watch out for your announcement next week.Michael

I bought wxre1.6 about 2 weeks ago, so, if you create a new vertion, that will run all that you published (and don