I have a question I cant solve :-)I'm departing from an airport with 7000 meters visbility.But after 10nm or 7000ft it all changed and it looks like clear skies.... what should I set ?

Hi,Yes, as you climb your visibility will clear. If you want your visibility to remain always what is reported at the surface (regardless of altitude) you can disable "Depict FS9 Haze Layer" and "Visibilty Graduation" options. In real life, when you climb, the visibility does clear up. It is unrealistic to see 4SM horizontal visibility when at FL330, for example... But if you want this all-altitude visibility restriction just disable the 2 options listed above.Best,

Thanks for the replay, but still didnt work.I had 4000 meters visibility reported, my airport altitude is 180'when I climbed to 5000' it looked like 10,000 meters of vis.I fly in real life and I dont agree that when you climb the horizontal vis is always improving.sometimes it remains as it is.

Anyone ???

Hi,You tried but it did not work.. not sure I understand? What didn't work, what problems, etc? Please provide a little more information. Remember you cannot just change the options in-flight, you must change them before your flight, while still on ground.FWIW In the fairly limited real-life experience I have (only about 450 hours Commercial/Multi/Inst) I have never seen low visibility i.e. 2SM stay all the way up past say 10,000ft AGL unless of course I was in a cloud.If others would like to comment please do so, as the last thing we want is an unrealistic graduation of visibility. This is the first time I've ever heard that vis should not clear as you climb, and of course I have never experience such an effect in real life, but as I said my experience is very limited. I'm sure those with several more thousand hours than me will chime in soon.Best,

Hi Damian,I have just been reading this (relatively) old thread and would like to comment on this problem, which seems a fairly constant subject of criticism in this forum. I have no pilot experience, only as a passenger on commercial flights, but I was a forecaster and hopefully understand the meteorology better than some. You are correct in saying that poor visibility is generally restricted to the lower layers, and that when conditions are right for poor surface visibility this will be because there is either a temperature inversion (increase with height) from the surface to generally no more than 1-2000ft as formed by cooling at the ground or sea, or there is a subsidence inversion (caused by mass descent of the air in an anticyclone (high)) at an intermediate height, mostly from 3-6000ft but sometimes deeper, with the whole of the layer below the inversion having low visibility, say 5 up to 10kms, with clearer (generally much clearer) air above the inversion. In the surface inversion situation we get fog, which will extend part, not all, of the way to the top of the inversion. Of course conditions can be more complex - frequently the surface inversion will form underneath a subsidence inversion, while in frontal situations we get multiple inversions, and precipitation contributing to lower visibilities. In the subsidence inversion visibilities are generally higher than fog limits and condensation may or may not occur, and then only at the top of the layer in the form of shallow cumulus or stratocumulus. A main characteristic is that both visibility and cloud clear above the inversion, though obviously there can be other cloud layers higher up in the atmosphere. This presumably is what FS is trying to simulate with the 'haze layer'.The situation described here and by others, and frequently experienced to my disappointment when I am 'flying' is that the visibility improves everywhere, i.e. instead of the aircraft passing up into an area of clear sky above a haze layer, through which hills and mountains and other ground features would remain almost totally obscured except straight down, one gets max visibility in all slantwise downward directions with no sign of a haze top (I tend to fly low and slow around the more mountainous parts of the world). I remember seeing a haze top in ASV but have yet to experience it in ASV6. I do have 'depict FS9 Haze Layer' selected (default)in Options.May I ask whether it is your view that the abrupt change in Vis which occurs around 10K plus or minus IS the top of the FS9 haze layer? How is this level determined?In my view a major improvement to the system would be if the height of the haze top (inversion) could be specified in Options, and if the top could be gradual over a few hundred feet instead of abrupt. It would be really neat if it were possible to specify cloud tops at this level also (it is possible in the default FS weather!). No doubt the present version of FS does not allow this. Mervyn

Excellent post not being able to climb through a haze layer into clear air with a still visible lower haze layer is my biggest gripe with FS9. However this issue has been canvassed so many times in this forum and as no fix has emerged after two years I guess there isn't going to be one at least for FS9.Bruceb

I thought ASV6 did this (Depending on the METAR data it's using) by simulating a low level cloud band. The net effect is that when you're above it, it looks like low-level haze, and it does obscure the ground. I have seen it already with ASV6, which I just bought about 2 days ago. And the docs for ASV6 say that a low-level cloud layer will be created under certain METAR conditions to simulate this ground-obscuring effect. Rhett

Well if it does this then great because I suggested this fix about six months ago - however I have yet to see it with ASV6.Bruceb

As I indicated I haven't experienced it yet. It seems to me we have no control over the top of the haze layer and I can't see what element in a Metar is going to make the difference in whether we see it or not. If Damian, Chris or Jim know which weather data allows FS to simulate these effects then I wish they'd let us know so we can put it in via the configurator. It's not as if the effect is rare, meteorologically speaking. Perhaps FSX will supply the answer?Mervyn

>May I ask whether it is your view that the abrupt change in>Vis which occurs around 10K plus or minus IS the top of the>FS9 haze layer? How is this level determined?Mervyn,I wonder whether you are newcomer to FS9 or not because this topic has been discussed hundreds of time by now. This is a very well known limitation in FS9 that visibility tend to switch on a "dime" so to speak. If you read other posts on this topic you will find there is only one way to remedy this problem albeit it comes at a price:1. set cloud draw distance at 302. turn OFF "depict haze layer"3. set maximum visibility at 29 miles.The price is 29 miles max visibility. If you can live with this you will never see (per mine and others testing) sudden visibility changes.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

Unfortunately the price is very high. When flying at high altitude setting max visibility at 29 miles is quite unrealistic most of the time. Furthermore turning off the FS9 haze level only swaps one visual anomaly for another - take your choice.Bruceb

I didn't write the program, all I know is what I read in the docs, and later saw in the sim. I think the idea of creating a low-lvl cumulus layer to simulate ground-obscuring fog is a good one, at least in theory.Hopefully in FSX the vis problem will be made right. You know, about a week ago I sent the MS FS team a suggestion to this effect, in their suggestion e-mail box as per Mike's (tdragger)'s instructions. I said if only one thing can be fixed in the wx system, fix the vis/haze problem. That's how crucial I think it is to the wx realism...Happy flyinRhett

Hi All,First, with default AS options, vis graduation is enabled which will clear your visibility based on altitude and cloud layers as you climb up to the max visibility setting.The main problem is that when visibility transitions above the 9.9sm mark, several changes in depiction occur (by FS9): 1) The sky color goes from grey to blue, 2) The horizonal visibility "mask band" is lifted, showing much more forward visibility and, related to 2, 3) The actual depiction of visibility appears to grow greatly without linearity (i.e. it appears to go from 9sm to 20sm in one step). Same thing happens in reverse when going below the 9.9sm mark.We've provided a solution to issue #1, the sky color, by including the "Day Smooth Horizon" sky color sets. These have much less color transition between the visibility levels. What it results in is a blueish fog but as vis clears the transition is much less obvious.Unfortunately #2 and #3 cannot be addressed (by us) as this is part of the weather/graphics depiction code within FS9. It would require modifications that are beyond the scope of the FS license agreement (i.e. disassembly and low-level modification of internal FS exe and .dll files, and subsequent re-distribution of such modified files).As to depicting a cloud layer to represent visibility, this IS done via AS "Fog Layer Generation" feature (optional). When vis is less than 3SM a cumulus (or sometimes stratus) layer will be drawn. Unfortunately, depicting such cloud layers with higher vis ends up being quite unrealistic. I.e. do you want a solid cumulus deck obscuring the ground when skies reported clear but vis 8sm?We are all hoping that FSX has a much better visibility rendering system and either makes things great by default, or at least enables us to provide a better 3rd-party solution. It is obvious that it is a very popular "gripe" about FS9 weather and I'm pretty sure the FS development team is well aware of this and will do what they can to improve things within their capability. Whatever happens, we will continue our ongoing effort to provide to the best, most realistic weather and sky experience, using whatever new technologies, tools or techniques are available to us. The visibility issue has pretty much been our #1 priority for improvement for well oer a year now. It's so far resulted in the many visibility handling options you now see in ASv6 including visibility Graduation, Depict FS9 Haze Layer, minimum and maximum visibility limits, fog layer generation, and use FSUIPC vis smoothing as well as the new Day Smooth Horizon sky color sets. It is clear that users have many different expectations and tastes when it comes to this, so our options and textures hopefully allow an acceptable interim compromise despite the limitations we are up against.As always, comments, questions and suggestions are very welcome.Best,

It is so well stated that I decided to repost it on the FSX forum.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg