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drskyking

Nothing but clear weather and scattered clouds in OVC conditions

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Maybe I want to much and to real weather! I went to KALB at 0218Z, after clearing all weather and turning weather settings off in FSUIPC, then started AS, got the 0050Z weather for KALB, METAR KALB BKN 060 OVC 085. In FS9, I saw what looked like nice OVC layer, I then slewed up to 7000 feet, still saw the ground, finally at 12000 was in the clouds, still however able to see the ground through a "hole" around my aircraft and some holes in clouds. Why not solid OVC?Went to KSTL, Metar BKN 040 OVC 055 -RA, looked great on the ground, gloomy, rainy. Slewed up to 5900, got into a thin see- through layer of cloud, at 7000 a little thicker, ground still visible but hazy, at 9700 into almost solid OVC, still a couple holes but not around plane. ??not solid?Tried going into FS9 after a restart and just created an OVC layer from 3000 to 12000 with stratus clouds then cumulus clouds, slewed to 6000 and same thing, able to always see hazy ground through "hole" around my plane and it looked like I was right at the top of the layer. I then used the canned gray and gloomy setting from the weather choices in FS9 and everything was great, solid OVC around 4000, low vis, couldn't see the ground. Am I doing something wrong with my set up somewhere?? turned triliear filtering on, mip mapping to max, render to texture on...Cloud settings all to max. Ahhhh, just want realistic OVC layers..No holes. Using old AS with my FS2002 gave me nice solid OVC layers. No holes in the clouds. Looking forward to making this work! thanks for ideas..

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Dell Dimension 4550 with NVidia GeForce FX 5600 256 RAM2.4 GHz Pentium 4, 768 RAM, 160 GB hard driveSoundBlaster Live 24 Bit sound cardRoadrunner high speed wireless internet connectionScreen Res 1024 X 768, 32 bit.I saw on a Google search there is a file called 2004 Overcast, which has some Cirrus overcast redo textures it suggests using to make a 1 foot cirrus overcast just below the bottom of the stratus or cum OVC layer to "give a more realistic "solid" OVC layer, but that would have to be done manually. Is there an inherent problem with FS9 making a "solid" OVC?Could it be the OVC enhancement in AS isn't working correctly?

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Hi Doc,Yes, with a default FS04 setup there is a OVC problem and that is one feature of AS that we have attempted to fix. In general, it's got to be working or we would have reports otherwise. My problem is that due to real life stuff, I can't actually fly again until Saturday. So I keep offering my suggestions until then, from work right now and from home when I get a chance. Have we tried to reinstall FSUIPC and set it to it's default weather settings?Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

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I just did a fresh install the day before I added AS. I can retry. When you say reinstall do you mean take out the FSUIPC dll and ini files from the modules folder then just put back the dll? Is the default OVC problem pretty much what I describe? If so then maybe FSUIPC is the culprit. I fly VCAir on line and others rave about AS2004.5! I only run FS2004 and FS2002 on the main PC and now AS. I must have done something wrong somewhere! Just wanted the nice solid low ceiling IFR we often get here along the Mohawk Valley, often 3-400 foot OVC about a 1000 feet thick then layers above that.

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Sadly I think the holes in the clouds around your aircraft is a FS9 issue. It has always been that way (and yes, it does make practising real world IFR approaches less real). You'll find it is you use their built-in weather as well i.e. it isn't AS2004.5 which causes this particular problem.The sky showing scattered Cumulus when METAR reports OVC for KALB is something which may be how AS2004.5 interprets weather in the surrounding area from multiple stations, but the "hole in the cloud" is FS9's fault.


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I just spent another 2 hours fooling with it. I determined that hole in the cloud was probably FS9. I flew KBUF to KCLE into hard IFR with both FS2004 and AS2004.5 and FS2002 with AS v1.92 and it was much more realistic with 2002 and the old AS!! Sorry to say. Could always see the ground, in fact the AS weather was no different from little old FSMETAR I have. I am really disappointed in AS2004.5, I thought it was going to get rid of the visible ground in hard IFR. It should state on the AS website that this will be an issue for us real life IFR pilots looking for as real as it gets, I don't think I would have purchased it had I known it wouldn't clear that up. Thanks for all the help. Jim, let me know if there will be a fix for this someday!

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>Can you jump around a bit and find a station that your machine>does show OVC? I want you to see a solid layer so we know what>we are trying to work you towards at your home airport. If AS>was not showing OVC after this weekend, you know this board>would be filled with posts.As I also saw the issue at KALB with not showing a solid overcast layer with an OVC in the METAR I did a bit more research. I am no longer inclined to say that if this was a wider issue more would be raising it.My experiments were based on taking a station which reported an OVC (and similar at other close stations) and then making manual changes to the METAR in the current_wx_snapshot.txt file to see what happened with various changes (and yes, I am sure of how to interpret and create METARs).Firstly, I think I can answer why you haven't seen more reports. In most cases when you have an OVC, you are also very likely to have visibility of less than 10 SM. This means that FS9's 10 SM limit kicks in and basically puts up the grey clouds all around to fake it. In other words, what you are most likely seeing in these cases is not a complete overcast, but FS9's way to limit visibility below 10 SM. I proved this by taking a METAR with the same OVC of say OVC025, but which originally had a visibility of 5SM, and switching that to 15SM. When you viewed it in FS9, with the 5SM vis, you saw grey all around, but with 15SM, you essentially got something either scattered or broken i.e. no solid overcast.Secondly I observed that results seem to differ slightly if the OVC layer was not the lowest layer. For example, if you had just OVC090 on its own (with a 15SM), you'd get a sky which looked broken. If you however made it something like SCT025 OVC090 or BKN050 OVC090, in many cases the subsequent displayed sky actually looked like it had less clouds and the higher overcast had even less impact!Maybe more investigation is therefore warranted.


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Jim, I hope you don't think I question the accuracy, this is a great product! Unfortunately as Quantumleap has pointed out, it doesn't allow simulation of solid hard IFR, I was getting to the same conclusion as Quantum, it is just a visibility reduction you get, no layers of BKN or OVC clouds. FS2002 and the old v1.92 AS does a much better job of this. I just think for us real life guys that want as accurate as possible IFR simulation, it should be pointed out somewhere on the site that it isn't possible to simulate a solid OVC layere because of FS9 issues, I wouldn't have paid the relatively high price for this if that was the case since I get the exact same thing with freeware FSMetar! I still appreciate the attempts to make this work. I think less intense users just use mainly the cockpit view which doesn't allow you to see down or up so it appears more like a solid OVC, but in VC mode as you look around and down you see the ground and clear sky above all the time! Take care, I will keep watching your site for updates!Quantumleap, thanks for defining what I was seeing, I thought I was going crazy being the only one not getting solid OVC!! Happy flying!

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For anyone else who reads this,Yes, it is possible to have a completely solid cloud deck where there are no holes, spaces, gaps, or ground showing through, and yes you can practice IFR conditions. Yes, you can get layers of BKN and OVC. It is possible to simulate a solid OVC layer, using FS04 and our Overcast Enhancement, so our web site is accurate. None of this matters as to what view you use. You can use 2D, VC, tower, or spot view and, if the conditions are right you will get a solid OVC.No, FS2002 and wxRE do not do a better job of this.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

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Gave things another try 2 days ago, at KALB Metar is AS 2004.5, BKN 2300, OVC 3400. When it loaded into FS2004, I got BKN at 6200 and see through OVC at 9600! Using the old ASv1.92.4 in FS 2002, got a nice OVC right at 3400 AGL.. I don't understand why this happens. Will keep trying! Cleared all weather as suggested, used Jim's advice for settings.

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>Maybe more investigation is therefore warranted.Anything more been done about looking in to this issue?


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