OVERCAST FIXED IN ASV????

[Guest leglegle]

As a real world commercially rated pilot, who flys out of Van Nuys, CA, I frequently see a Marine Layer overcast in real life, which requires me to use my instrument rating to get out. Usually, it is 10+ mile visibility and a 1-3000 ft ceiling, which is about 2000 feet thick. The marine layer usually goes up to the edge of the surrounding mountains of the basin, as it is pushed in from the West up against the mountains. All of Los Angeles, and most of the West Coast, is covered by it in the morning, and it burns off by noon or mid day, but affects us year round. It is awesome to poke through the tops in an Arrow or 172 after climbing the 2-3k feet and seeing clear blue sky!Bottom line: Will ASV allow me to finally fly under/over a overcast layer, and not see through it????!!!!!!! This is my biggest frustration, as, if I can see the ground through the overcast layer, as I do my approach, I know where I am! This is not true IFR, which is void of any outside situational awareness. PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS FIXED!!!! OTHERWISE I HAVE LOVED ACTIVESKY!CB

[Guest leglegle]

More importantly, will the days of getting little patches of clouds, just over the airport environment be gone. It's annoying to see a big "patch" of overcast or cumulus just over the airport, and then see clear skies just 5 miles away, with a patch of clouds 10 miles after that. Usually weather systems are more than 5-10 miles in diameter.

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,Thanks for your interest! Damian is from Cali. and has tried to reproduce those conditions you speak of. A solid overcast is possible if the conditions are right.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

[Guest leglegle]

Does "if the conditions are right" mean that if OVC is in the Metar than there will be a solid overcast layer? In real life OVC = overcast.Almost 365 days a year on the entire California Coast, OVC is on the metar of almost 100% of the West Coast airports. Is the poor overcast a Microsoft thing that cannot be overcome with coding by a 3rd party? Or, can it be, and ASV has not yet solved it?Either way, it is the single largest problem with flying in MS at the moment in my opinion. If you are flying from SFO to LAX on a summer morning, whether in a small plane, or commercially, and you look down, you see a white sheet everywhere on the coast, all the way into the Central Coast. You cannot see through it, because it is overcast, which by definition is 100 PERCENT COVERAGE. Not 90, Not 80, Not 70, BUT 100% When you fly through it, you see nothing outside. Pop out of it above and below, and it is clear. But until then, you should see no ground or no sky. Nothing.I hope the conditions needed that you speak of are OVC in the METAR. It's really that simple.

[Guest leglegle]

Here is a picture of 300+ days a year in the L.A. basinNotice the incredible opaqueness of true overcast. This is the marine layer on the entire West Coast from the top.

[Guest leglegle]

Alright, so let me boil down the last three emails into one simple question, as my concern was not addressed. Why does the sky not show 100% coverage or overcast, when there is OVC in the Metar? Is it a MS limitation and thus inability for ASV to achieve a solid, non-transparent OVC layer?CB

[Chris Willis 8]

HI Cb, "Why does the sky not show 100% coverage or overcast, when there is OVC in the Metar? Is it a MS limitation and thus inability for ASV to achieve a solid, non-transparent OVC layer?"The problems is only the frame rate hit, the actual improvement of overcast in active skyAsv is able to do this in some way and preserve fps. I cannot confirm you this now, but we are working in this for update, again the problem is the frame rate, we will probably include this not sure (always worrie about extreme low frame rate compare to a normalsmooth flight.) You would like to have full overcast and low frame rate as option?ThanksChris WillisHiFi Simulation Software Team Developerhttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpgFreeware Addons for FSW GROUP

[Guest leglegle]

Absolutely. The systems are getting faster, so I would like that option. Also, what then is the Overcast enhancement option? I thought that was designed to lay down two layers when there is an OVC forecast, so that you could emulate a solid, rather than slightly transparent OVC layer. If the overcast enhancement option does not do that already, than what does it do?CB

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, "If the overcast enhancement option does not do that already, than what does it do?"It does do it in another way in real weather only. Like I said, with the update we can add another option for overcast but I cannot confirm you this now at this stage.ThanksChris WillisHiFi Simulation Software Team Developerhttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpgFreeware Addons for FSW GROUP

[JSkorna 137]

Hi cb,FS04 weather is a complex thing and is not perfect when comparing to the real world. By itself FS04 will not give you solid OVC, the user must play around with cloud layers and such. AS has attempted to fix this with overcast enhancement. But at the same time AS uses a complex system of gathering weather data and processing it. A OVC is the METAR will not automatically create OVC conditions in FS04. Why? Because we use a blending of weather from all surrounding stations.In ASV there is the option of setting up your own weather conditions. Maybe this new feature called Weather Configurator would fit.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

[Guest leglegle]

Sounds good. Thanks guys.CB

[Moose4 0]

Guys, I hope this is OK, but I want to paste in a screenshot along these lines. This was taken about 15 east of Kotzebue, AK (PAOT), on Alaska's northwest coast, at 9500 feet. Note the METAR on the top of the screen. I was in the soup from wheels-up, the ground disappeared under me at about 1000 feet, and I didn't break out of it until about 9000.The environment settings, BTW, were random. I did extend the thickness of cloud layers to 25,000 feet, but I might set that back to 10,000--provided that I can still get some good summer cumulus built up if I do. That's the one thing I've always felt was missing from FS2004 weather...it seemed like weather, even with AS2004, basically stopped at about 10,000 feet unless you had some AS2004.5 anvil-headed monster reaching up to FL350. Here in Virginia, we get a lot of pretty tall cumulus, 15,000 feet or more, during hot summer afternoons, but not all of them are thunderstorms.That looks like one heck of a marine overcast to me!http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/119307.jpgLewis "Moose" GregoryRichmond, Virginia

[Guest leglegle]

Yes, Moose, that looks pretty good. But it the transparency of the bottom layer that is of issue. I am amazed that Microsoft could not get one of the basic four or five cloud layers correct. Especially when it can be emulated with a simple layer that simply does not have any transparency. It does not necessarily have to have vertical volumetric properties, although as most overcast are at least 500 ft thick, it would be nice. But, at the least, a SOLID thin layer, with no blue sky or ground showing through it would be most realistic. CB

[Guest dykesc]

>In ASV there is the option of setting up your own weather>conditions. Maybe this new feature called Weather Configurator>would fit.>>Hope this helps,>JimJim, I set up an OVC 003 2mi visibility metar in Wx Configurator. I was over 3000 feet in altitude after I took off before I completely lost sight of the ground. I should have entered an opaque overcast layer at 300 feet altitude according to the metar I had in effect. It appears to me, the only way to achieve the effect of entering a very low overcast layer is to also drop visibility to 1/4 mile or so.This has always been an FS shortcoming and as far as I can tell will always be until the FS weather engine is changed. I'm enjoying ASV, but I don't think ASV or any other product can solve the overcast shortcoming in FS.

[Moose4 0]

>Yes, Moose, that looks pretty good. But it the transparency>of the bottom layer that is of issue. I am amazed that>Microsoft could not get one of the basic four or five cloud>layers correct. Especially when it can be emulated with a>simple layer that simply does not have any transparency. It>does not necessarily have to have vertical volumetric>properties, although as most overcast are at least 500 ft>thick, it would be nice. But, at the least, a SOLID thin>layer, with no blue sky or ground showing through it would be>most realistic. >>CBOh, OK, I see what you're saying now; it's not looking all the way down from the top you're having the issue with, it's how quickly things fade out when you climb into it. Yes, then I agree, ASV won't fix that. That looks like a Microsoft shortcoming. The ground didn't fade out completely until I was at, oh, about 1400 feet--tough to tell, since the climbout put me over water, and I was climbing pretty steeply so I didn't have a good view of the ground anyhow. My horizon reference, however, was gone at 100-200 feet AGL.Lewis "Moose" GregoryRichmond, Virginia