I do most of my flying on VATSIM but do not use Vatsims's weather, due to it being REALLY old all the time. So, with that being said, do i need to enter my flightplan into the AS2004.5 before starting flight or can I just hit refresh once I am ready to start my flight (meaning weather is cleared and plane is sitting on the tarmac)?I know with the WXre you could. ThanksDavid K.

Hi David,Optional either way, but your weather may vary greatly to the VATSIM controller weather. May make for some interesting conversation.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

Been there, done that...hehe. I just acknowledge the winds and altimeter and keep using my own. More accurate anyway. Problem is with those panels that take manual knob turning to get altimeter set right.Thanks John.

>I do most of my flying on VATSIM but do not use Vatsims's>weather, due to it being REALLY old all the time. So, with>that being said, do i need to enter my flightplan into the>AS2004.5 before starting flight or can I just hit refresh once>I am ready to start my flight (meaning weather is cleared and>plane is sitting on the tarmac)?>>I know with the WXre you could. >>Thanks>David K.>No it isn't "REALLY old all the time". Where do you people keep coming up with this tripe? Have you even looked? 99+% of the time you'll get the same METAR from VATSIM that you get from AS.

Richard, with all due respect. What I mean by old is sometimes metars come across 1 hour to 1.5 hours old. I control also and see the zulu time stamp on the ASRC screen. I believe VATSIM pulls thier weather information from a different source than, say AS or even the default FS program. Example: I can be sitting in Orlando in the middle of a thunderstorm, according to my latest AS update, yet the controllers are telling me partly cloudy skies. Then after we are airborne, the controllers metar updates and shows the thunderstorm. Maybe one day we will get a program to give more instantaneous updates on the weather in the real world. Until then we enjoy what we have.I am not complaining, after all this is all free, so I will take what I can get. :D You guys do a great job!

Actually, the sources are pretty much the same for all of them.What you are describing is the 20-minute delay built-in to ASRC. Once it has requested the METAR from a station, it will not request it again for 20 minutes. If it changes in that time (which it may very well do at the top of the hour), you won't see that change instantly whereas a pilot might see it.