So far i'm regretting my purchase of active sky but all hope is not lost. I hope someone can help me because my problem is pretty simple compaired to others. I basically use flight simulator 2004 for spotting so i don't fly that much. I bought active sky because i wanted to be able to create weather that slowly changes over time at one airport or the region where the specific airport is located in. For example i would like to be able to start with clear sky then slowly watch it change over time to build up with clouds and then maybe even a rainstorm or snow storm. I thought this could be accomplished with active sky but so far it doesn't work that way for me and the manual is not too clear about "programming" weather. Flight simulator weather handles this a little but active sky looks much better. I also have no idea how to work with metars and taffs and all sorts of other files related to weather. I feel this is a great product for true pilots and maybe even weathermen, but for a simple plane spotter, it's very confusing. I am also not familiar with dowloaded weather files and by the way, how can you tell what kind of weather you start with when you load a specific airport. I guess i'm doing something seriously wrong and it looks like i have more than one problem sorry. I also want to say that i have looked at the forums and my specific problem seems to not been discussed yet and i looked through all pages so that's why i am writing. Is there an active sky for dummies guide out there? a big thank you for anyone that can me give assistance.

>then slowly watch it change>over time to build up with clouds and then maybe even a>rainstorm or snow storm. The question is how 'slowly'? How much patience do you have?. Real weather changes usually very slowly (if not convinced - just stare through your window for a few hours !!) and few people have patience to sit at the computer and wait for 6 or more hours. The biggest change in weather as perceived by pilots is when you actually fly from A to B and weather in B is different than weather in A.Michael J.

It looks like what you're looking for is this:a program that lets you choose starting and ending weather condition, and time between.AS2004 does not do this, and has never been advertised as doing so.AS is a program built to create the most realistic representation of REAL weather.This means you ain't gonna see anything which is not out of your window.If there is no storm approaching you won't ever get any storm.What you are asking (if i understand you well) has never been in the scope of AS.You could theoretically tweak AS into thinking that a certain weather condition is approaching, but this needs to manually feed a weather file with correctly edited metars and tafs.A thing that you are not able to do.I do not know of any program able to do what you're asking.AS does it's job very good: it takes real weather data and makes the best FS representation.Out of that, i don't know how to help.

There may be something more suitable for you:www.weather-maker.comIt is my understanding it is freeware. But few people use it and I have no idea how good it is. But supposedly it lets you "make" the weather to your own likeing.Michael J.

Weathermaker is about to become payware but from my brief look at the freeware preview (avaiable until about 16 Aug) it would fit your particular requirements better than AS2004. I'm not quite sure how Weathermaker improves on the dynamic weather option within FS9 itself but apparently it does. I see it as a complimentary product to AS2004 rather than a competitor and may even buy it myself if independent reviews of the payware version are favourable.Bruce

Hi,As others have mentioned, AS2004 does not provide an on-screen interface for programming your own weather conditions or themes. It is designed for real-world data to simulate real-world conditions (real-time or historical). You CAN set your own data, but it requires in-depth knowledge of how AS2004 internals work (documented).As far as interpreting the METAR, TAF and winds reports, you should give the manual a good read. You will learn many things that will make your experience much more rewarding. AS2004 is a realism-based product, as we have attempted to convey in the product descriptions, and due to this, it REQUIRES you to learn about the real-world aviation weather environment and its reporiting/forecasting facilities (if you are not familiar already).You also CAN get "decoded" weather information through the ActiveRadar module (Tracking screen), normal update text messages, FlightWatch text messages, and/or FlightWatch voice messages (on 122.00).Hope that helps!

If I am reading this right you want to see the weather changingwhile aircraft are landing and departing. If this is correct maybeyou should look at a real weather site to see where storms arebuilding and then take FS to that area and watch the weather change.Just a suggestion.

One "trick" I do is to check the areas of interesest on line by browsing to www.wunderground.com. In the top query you can put in an airport ICAO code such as KMSP or city-state, etc. You will be taken to that site, and if available, thumbnails of local and regional radar will be available, along with current weather conditions. (Those who wish can unhide the METAR report to show in addition to a "normal" readout.)If you like what you see, crank up AS2004 (you don't need FS running) and download the current weather via the download dialog. You can then save it to disk. In this step I create a folder such as summer - trw north-south and save the weather to it noting the zulu time and date in the saved file name (do not change it). If I have opened up the regional radar image in the browser, I will then save that image navigating to the same folder and title the image with the area, zulu time and date of the saved weather file such as mpxrgn10Z080404. Over time, you can build up an archive of interesting weather scenarios that are real an have a radar image of the area of interest to look at if you wish relevant to each file. You can then call up the saved file in AS2004 after setting up your flight (be sure to choose the clear weather theme or use FSUIPC to clear the weather), do a refresh, wait a few minutes, and your very own archived weather should appear in FS. Do not forget that your system/flight time will modify the original environment to an extrapolated weather condition.

thank you all for your advice. I think what i will be doing is waiting for the weathermaker pro to come out. it seems to be what i am looking for. i appreciate all the help and especially the info on weathermaker. i am still going to keep active sky because it really does look very good, except for the fps but we won't get into that. thanks again

Hi,FPS... try B130 beta (avail in pinned thread at top of forum). The new cloud depiction should help. Also try limiting cloud layers in AS options.Cloud depiction is always going to hurt FPS in FS (regardless how your wx gets provided), and there are many things you can do to increase performance directly in FS. Try reducing the max vis range and max cloud draw distance, this helps significantly. Also try FSW's 32-bit high-performance cloud set (fsw.simflight.com).Hope that helps!