First off, let me say that i am happy with ActiveSky. I think it is a great product and the visibility smoothing etc. features are essential!However, this is one thing i dont like which i have noticed. This is ActiveSky's depiction of overcast skies. For both departure and destination, if it is overcast, you wont see a complete overcast sky. You normally see a patch of overcast cloud over a part of the sky and the rest is usually blue sky. I guess this is because the METAR weather is shown only over a 2 mile area around the weather station and the area surrounding that is calculated based on some algorithm. For example, look at the pic below which i took today as i was landing in Kansas Intl. Kansas was reporting overcast skies but as you can see from the pic, only a small proportion of the sky is actually overcast over Kansas. The other areas are partly cloudy which FS tends to draw as practically clear blue sky with the odd cloud here and there. So as i was making my approach i was descending through clear skies and did not fly through a single cloud. By the time i landed, i look up and there are overcast skies there but because they are only about a mile or 2 across, i was below the ceiling by the time i reached them.Now look at the second picture taken from the same location using FS weather. Notice how it creates a big thick overcast sky around the whole area (not just 1-2 miles over Kansas) which i think is much better and more realistic.I guess what i am saying is, is it possible to have a function which means that around 100 miles around your destination airport you get the destination weather and something similiar (maybe 50 miles) around the departure airport. This problem also happens in departure airport. I regularly fly out of Toronto and whenever it reports overcast skies, i get a batch of overcast skies about 2-3 miles across over Toronto with blue skies with the odd cloud in it everywhere else. So as i take off, by the time i reach the cloud base i am flying over blue sky.I guess this problem is shielded when there is lower visibility because it is not as noticable then.

San H,In AS:Overcast Enhancement ON?In FS:Cloud cover Maximum?What is your cloud draw distance?3d clouds 100%?Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Support

I am another convinced user of activeSky, but was eager to see this problem once discussed here and tks to this friend to mention it. I am continuously surprised to be in any european airport last week, with total overcast sky, +/- 2o meters of visibility, heavy snowing, airport closed for vfr. Takin off, getting over the clouds, and nowhere a complete overcast sky!. Turning around, trying to find somewhere where ground really invisible and....! No success. Landing to the same airport again, getting into the clousds and TOTAL overcast!Hope this help and tks for the great program.rc.ps. I have tried this with 20, 30 40 50, 60,and 90 miles drawing distance, with "Overcast enhancement ON" and 3d cloud activated!

Hi ronalito,I agree. I think it is because of the surrounding stations reporting different weather. If the destination airport shows overcast, you will get about 2 or 3 miles of heavy clouds close together over the airport. But if any of the surrounding weather stations are showing broken, or other cloud cover, FS does not do a very good job of showing it. Broken clouds are usually shown quite spaced out which gives the impression of clear skies around the bunch of "overcast" clouds over the airport.Thats why we need a function allowing us to force departure weather and destination weather within a zone around those airports.So within a 100 mile radius of the departure airport (user can change this range) you will get the departure weather consistently and the same for the destination airport. So if you are landing, say at Heathrow and the METAR reports overcast skies, as you descend from maybe 70 miles out you will descend through overcast clouds which stretch right to the airport.

Hi,I do agree with that. I remember when using Fly 2 to used a utility called : INFOMETAR, that has a Thinning metar process to remove all metar observations that fall outside of the area of the flight.Is this possible with ActiveSky ???.AllenLFBL

Hi San,First, are you using the latest beta? It should really help here.Second, you may want to try the force destination wx zone which makes a 75-nm radius around your dest airport completely cloned to the dest wx report... Essentially exactly what you requested here..Third, you may also want to force on global writes which in some areas (Canada is likely) will provide "bigger" wx areas. Do this by turning off the global auto toggle and turning on global writes.Does this help?Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyhttp://www.hifisim.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004betateam.jpg