First of all I would like to thank you for this great program, It has served its purpose as advertised without any problems for me. I would like to offer a suggestion. For overcast situations, which are not very well produced in FS9, is there a way to use the visibility features as a way of limiting your view while in an overcast layer. If your program could determine when an aircraft is within an overcast layer it could send a message to reduce visibility to 0 until you emerge and restore to reported visibitity values. Example: if the clouds are reported to be 300ft ovc and the tops are 5000ft, when descending through 5000 feet the visibility would drop to 0 or near 0 as you are now in the clouds. The visibility would then revert back to whatever the reported value is when flying through 300ft. This would seem to eliminate the frustrating poor reproduction of flying in the soup that fs9 gives. Of course you would still show overcast exactly the way you do now so that you can see the layer from above and below. I think this could also be done by FSUIPC if the feature were added to that program. Not sure if this has been suggested before, but I hope its something that could be done for those of us who like IFR. Thanks again.

Hi,I got your e-mail about this also, so I'll post here for everyone to read!We would all think that it would be easy to do this, but you need to remember that FS04 uses clouds to control visibility. The problem with this is that a 4,700ft thick cloud layer will turn ANY computer into a slide show presentation of FS04. A visibility of zero would require this to be a cumulus layer and boy there isn't a machine out there that would manage that. Be asured that we have gone through every possible fix for FS04 and there is nothing we or anyone else has come up with.I hope this answers this, Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

Thanks for the replyI'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say clouds control visibility. If I set up my own weather in FS9 I can set a cloud layer and a visibility layer. If I set the overcast cloud layer to be 2000ft to 3000ft (previous example may have been extreme) I can then set a visibility layer of 1/16 also 2000ft to 3000ft. While I'm between the layer I would see nothing but while under 2000ft or over 3000ft I can see just fine. The problem is within FS there is only one visibility layer. And the trick would be to make this all automatic within active sky or FSUIPC. I wouldn't change a thing with how active sky presents it's cloud layers just an option to change the visibility while within overcast cloud layers whatever they may be. Right Now through FSUIPC and activesky we can change the visibility under certain conditions. We can increase the visibility as we increase altitude or set a maximum vis under rainy conditions and I different max vis when clear. To set visibility to a value within an overcast layer we would just need to know when the aircraft is in the layer in order to trigger the change.Thanks again and appreciate the hard work.

Hi,What I mean is that FS04 gets it's visibility data and then uses a certain cloud bmp to adjust the visibility. To get a solid deck of clouds you must use cumulus clouds or double up cloud layers as we do using Enhanced Visibility.Try this: use your second example and form a cumulus cloud layer of 8/8 coverage from 2000 to 3000 feet. That will give you zero visibility. But the problem is what if the visibility is 1 mile? There is no way to back those cumulus clouds off to now give you 1 mile visibility. A lower coverage just means less clouds not clouds drawn farther away from you.Thanks, Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

Airport X which has a feild elevation of 0ft MSL. The weather is reported 5mile vis and 600 feet overcast. during approach before reaching 600ft I should not be able to see the runway or the ground for that matter. In fs9 prior to reaching 600ft I can see the ground and the runway just fine most of the time, thus the need for activesky's overcast enhancement. If I'm much higher than 600ft the view may be obscured by clouds but the base is what's most important here. If I could limit the visibility to 1/16 or 1/4 mile until I reach 600ft then revert back to 5 miles I would have a sense of breaking out of the overcast at the reported ceiling for a chance to look for the runway, and land if I flew my approach right. It would also need a some smoothing as it looks a little funny going from 1/4 mile to 5 or 10 miles vis instantly.I think we are talking about two different things. I don't want to change how the clouds are depicted, just wan to use the visibility parameter to simulate being in the clouds in overcast situations.

Hi,The transitions are a feature of FS04 that we cannot get around.Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

With a little tweaking of the "Visibility" options in the registered FSUIPC you can achieve that, at least emulate it a bit ... I find AS6 looks most realistic with visibility further restricted through FSUIPC. That combination is probably as good as it gets.

Hi,I should also add that having Use FS9 Haze and Fog Generation On can help a bit.Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

Hi Jim,I think I know what cb74 is suggesting, and I don't believe it is something that AS6 does right now.If AS6 could actively track the location AND altitude of the aircraft, it could use this information to determine if the aircraft is currently in an OVC cloud layer, according to the closest metar. If it is, then AS6 could then set the visibility to a low number, on the fly (so to speak.) Once the aircraft has climbed above or descended below the OVC layer, the visibility setting would then be set back to what is in the metar.Of course, this may cause a higher load on the system, as AS6 would be continously communicating with FSUIPC. But doesn't it do that now? to track the aircraft's location?Just a thought. It will be interesting to see how FSX handles OVC....jim

Thanks JimThat's exactly what I mean. If it's a possibility (would be nice), If not no problem at all. Just an Idea.Thanks for your time.

Hi cb,So you want very low visibility while in the OVC layer? If yes, then I have mis-understood the request, so sorry about that. Please let me know and I can see!Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

Yes JimThanks for looking into it. No problem about misunderstanding, it seems you were able to sum it up in just a few words. Much better than my rambling:-hah

Hi,During a busy weekend I did have a chance to fly a bit and I realized the reason we cannot control visibility from within a cloud layer. The reason is that FS04 will not allow different cloud types to be mixed within one layer of clouds. So you cannot mix a cumulus layer with the clouds that limit the visibility. Also there is a clear bubble area around your plane as you fly. You can see this from Spot View as your plane will never be half in a cloud and half not in a cloud. I wish I had more on this!Thanks, Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

Thankyou for trying.Did you try using FS04 userdefined weather to set the bottom limit of visibility to a height above the ground. When on the ground you'll have good vis and when above the height you select you'll have limited visibility. Also If you don't mind me asking, what clouds would you have used to limit visibility.Do you know if FSX has more than one visibility layer. I have a feeling the weather in FSX is not going to change much without your help.Keep it Up.

Hi,No, just a single visibility layer from ground to above the highest cloud tops. So I got low vis at the ground until the first OVC layer, a fairly clear bubble in the OVC layer and then low vis until 10K.FS04 uses the stratus.bmp for visibility control I believe.FSX handles vis a bit better, but I don't think it has multiple visibility layers. But then again I have not scecifically looked either!Hope this helps,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/