heavy snow and lights

[Guest johodg]

Hi!How should the screen look when as2004 makes a no visibility snow scenario at the middle of the night? Are you supposed to se at least the nearest runway lights clear or are they supposed to be "dimmed" down as in my case? The result is that my screen is way to black and I can hardly see nor follow any lights on ground. This is totally wrong in my opinion. In real life even in the heaviest snow storm you will easily see the lights nearest to you if everything else is dark as in this case.//Johannes

[Damian Clark 1,256]

Hi, was the weather wrong, or are you simply referring to the way FS9 is handling your lights display in such weather? I'm afraid there is nothing we can do in FS9's regard. Perhaps a post for the FS forum? Maybe somebody has some ideas or this is a known issue? FWIW I've never noted such a problem... BUT if you have ever flown PIC in zero vis then you'll note that the lights ARE very hard to see. Once during my IFR training in Fresno we proceded to taxi onto the runway right as the fog was thickening to zero (had been 1/2 mile up till then, we expected things to get better, not worse). We set position on the numbers right when we were enveloped by the thicker fog. We could not even see the runway side lights (this was at night). After explaining we had zero vis to tower and could not even see the runway, and that it didn't appear to be anything temporary, we got permission to WAIT a few minutes in position until we could actually see the runway side lights so we could safely taxi OFF the runway and back to the hangar. Tower said no problem. Not an easy feeling waiting on the active runway. Good thing nobody else wanted to land... Took about 15 minutes for the fog to clear a little then we promptly taxied off the runway, barely able to make out any lights. Quite an interesting experience. Learned something that day and significantly increased my personal minimums when such fog is present. What if I took off and had an engine failure or other problem and had to land immediately? This was in a Seminole, an old one, and it couldn't really fly on one engine with all the junk and fuel we had loaded in it that night.Not sure this applies in your case, but I can confirm that IRL lights CAN go dim or even totally vanish in zero vis! After all, that's why they call it ZERO vis!Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyhttp://www.hifisim.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004betateam.jpg

[Guest johodg]

Hi Damian!First I wanted to clarify that it could be normal. Second I can tell you that it certainly is not normal here in Stockholm Sweden(almost sea level) to get fog and snow at the same time. Actually I can not recall that type of weather at all. On the other hand in Austria, when skiing in the mountains, I