Ok, I am completely tired of what has been going on with my AS2004. First off I would like to say thanks to the people that have tried to help me out. Customer service has been great and the forum has helped too. I have tried everything suggested. Today on flight from KOAK-KSEA, i had the worst experience. Cloud pop ups once I got to cruise. NO SMOOTH TRANSITIONS AT ALL!! The only thing that seemed to be reported correctely was while on the ground at KOAK. It was raining heavily and low visibility. It was like that until 5000ft when I broke out. Yet when I looked back, there was no overcast. I was seeing ground. But thats ok i guess considering I am flying forward not backwards! On arrival at KSEA they (ATIS) were reporting 008/03 kts 7100 sct 9200 BKN 11000 over cast and 13000 overcast. Well from my T/D point that was not the case. I was seeing widely scattered clouds and the ground. Hmmm I thought overcast meant you couldnt see the ground. Then i prepare for my approach. Once I got below the "supposed overcast", it looked like it should have been as the ATIS said. I get lined up on the localizer and BAM, i am in a thick black cloud. The winds had shifted and I was getting a crosswind of 17kts. I had to crunch on my A/P again to get it lined up. I was in a dark cloud up until 500 ft. Since it was such a stiff crosswind, i wasnt lined up and did the missed approach. I was cleaning up my flaps and picking up my speed at about half way down the runway. BAM!! Clear skies. Completely clear skies. I turn to the right and try to get back on to my approach. The sky rapidly changed about 3 times from clear skies, to heavily cloudy sky to scattered.....none of which the ATIS was reporting. I get back on final again, and Im in another cloud until 500ft. This is a product that I have paid for. I was expecting everything that was mentioned before the release. So far I have barely seen anything that AS2004 has been capeable of. I think it has potential to be a great product, but I believe it is not up to the standards that were advertised. Im going to continue to tweak and try things, but evrything i have tried has not worked. Destination weather is never correct, departure weather is usually correct and cruise weather is sometimes right. There are rapid wind changes that blow my PMDG 737 all over the place, sometimes stalling or sometimes overspeeding the plane causing damage to stress. I hope this product will be reworked because right now, i do not believe it was ready for its release. Brad Zimmer

Hi Brad - First, I am not with AS tech support in ANY way but I have to really disagree with your opinion. "ON MY SYSTEM" I have not experienced anything even close to what you describe. Actually, the opposite - I find the overcast to be just as when I flew IFR in real life. My "big" complaint with AS2 would be the frame rate hit altho that's really MS Cloud problem.I have followed your posts and know you're getting advice from the people who know but, IMHO, I'd look closely at your system, your drivers, *ANY* add-on's, etc. The product is well worth the effort.I've been building and working with computers for over 20 years and I've found that, when having a problem such as yours, it pays to "step away" - take a deep breath and start from scratch. Set up a repeatable test situation then - slowly, methodically change ONE THING AT A TIME - then test then change and repeat. Takes a while, takes patience which is DIFFICULT when you're frustrated but give it a try.HTH,Vic

Hi Brad,Obviously you are frustrated. I can understand. But as others have pointed out, this is not happening on every system.What more can I say? I am working non-stop without much sleep to address these issues ASAP... but when I cannot duplicate them it is very difficult. I can only say sorry that it is not working for you, but I am doing everything I can do fix it."On arrival at KSEA they (ATIS) were reporting 008/03 kts 7100 sct 9200 BKN 11000 over cast and 13000 overcast. Well from my T/D point that was not the case. I was seeing widely scattered clouds and the ground."At your T/D point? You mean top of descent? Why would you expect to see conditions for KSEA when you are ~100nm away from it?Perhaps your troubles have to do with your misunderstanding of the way AS2004 operates? I really think that may be the case."it looked like it should have been as the ATIS said. I get lined up on the localizer and BAM, i am in a thick black cloud."At 11,000? You didn't specify the altitude but 11K sounds about right from your report. Hmmm.. Overcast is reported at 11,000... I don't see a problem here... Was the problem that you first were not in clouds and the clouds suddenly came in?If so, I suspect your update rate is too long and is conflicting with the local suppression range settings. Either reduce your update rate to 10 minutes or disable local suppression."The sky rapidly changed about 3 times from clear skies, to heavily cloudy sky to scattered"I haven't heard of this before.. Are you using Squawkbox? Have you disabled real world updates appropriately?Do you have any other add-ons that might be conflicting with the weather?Brad, your post is too disorganized to troubleshoot and provide response on all issues... I think your note is more a cry of frustration than anything else, and I understand, but please realize that there ARE a majority of AS2004 users who are using it without such problems, so obviously there is SOMETHING we can do easily have the same results be experienced by you. For example, perhaps we must further explain the way real world weather processing works and get into more detail about AS2004 operation inside FS9's station-based weather architecture, this may be a big help in improving your experience alone. I will work on some in-depth tutorials and technical briefs.As to the relatively small amount of issues found after release, I do not in any way think this is indicative of a product not ready for release. Quite the contrary, this is my 5th product release I've been involved in and this was the smoothest and most reliable release yet. I understand that from the user's viewpoint who is EXPERIENCING one of these issues, it can seem like a an unreliable product, but I can assure you that is not the case. Again, I am working my tail off to solve these few remaining issues that you and a few others are experiencing. In a matter of days I am confident any "issues" will either be solved by the update or "addressed" by further understanding of the AS2004/FS2004 weather environment.Thanks for your support and patience..-Damian

my problem was when I was on final. I had a perfect view of the runway at about 4000. Then the next thing I know i am in a cloud until 500ft. After the missed approach i climb up and expecting to get back in the soup, I climb into a clear sky and the clouds are not there. I am frustrated, but want to let you know I am not flaming you or the product. I think the product is very good, i just cant gt it right!

I understand.. and thanks!Please turn on global writes, and turn down your update interval to 10 minutes. Also I suggest disabling Update Suppression or lowering that altitude to say 2000 ft. Based on your posts, I think this will be the best combination of settings for you. The wind transition issue with global writes is being addressed and a fix will be available very very soon, but in the mean time I think it will provide the best results in your case. Let us know! Also try turning off visibility smoothing if you continue to have the same issue, as there is a new finding where visibility smoothing can cause problems in certain circumstances. Long shot, but worth mentioning... Thanks...Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyhttp://www.hifisim.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004betateam.jpg

Damian,I think he should try a test in an area with fewer reporting stations than the Seattle area. He may be experiencing multiple station transitions in a small geographic area, while expecting the weather to behave more like the older global weather with a 40 mile lock on transitions.For example, he doesn't mention the approach, but I assume it's from the south since the winds are light out of the north. He would transition through the Auburn and McChord METAR areas before actually getting to the METAR weather of KSEA. This explains how he would see the ground and then suddenly be in a dark cloud, especially flying above the suppression level.On his missed approach, he would encounter the weather at Boeing field, which is only 4 miles to the north. This might explain why he's seeing clear skies on his missed approach. The METAR is only reporting weather directly above the reporting station, not in the vicinity.I'm guessing here because there are not enough details to replicate the flight, but the only real issue appears to be the rather quick transitions. We've seen that this can be a FS2004 issue and not an AS2004 issue.Bruce