As I am not able to fly "real time" that much (else I would have a lot of night hours logged!)- I do all of my flying "in the past" where I will download a long series of weather files from AS6 (usually 1 complete day or a few days' worth) and fly during that timeframe.I seem to have a difficulty when doing this, however, as I am constantly fighting a battle between the FS clock and the System clock and AS6. Here's what is happening:Suppose for this example the REAL date and time (i.e. the time I am sitting at the computer flying) is 10/15/2006, 19Z.Say I want to make a flight from SEA to LAX, which departs 10/14/2006, 03Z.Also say that I have download all the weather for 10/14/2006 and 10/15/2006, theoretically at this point I should no longer need to be connected to the internet because I have all the weather on my system already.So I make my flight plan in FSBuild (external planner) and I save it to a .pln file. Then I load AS6 (note here that I have not yet opened FS). I calculate the proper weather file to load via "Load Wx" and load it- in this example 20061014_03Z_archive.dat. I load the flight plan via "New Route", press "Process" and it calculates the enroute weather. At this point AS6 displays 'AS IS PAUSED - Refresh to start processing"Now I want to get the proper textures via the Wx-influenced theme so I need to "Refresh" in order to get texture updates. I press "Refresh" and AS6 tries to set the FS weather but since it does not see any FS open, it seems like it uses the system time (again, 10/15, 19Z) to calculate the textures, and loads the appropriate weather file (20061015_19Z_archive.dat). This is incorrect because I intend to fly the sim with a "FS" date of 10/14/06, 03Z. Thus the texture selections are based off the incorrect weather file and the weather that is about to be written to the sim is from the wrong time.Do you see the problem? It is actually twofold. First of all, in order to get a full sky update, FS must be closed. But with FS closed, AS6 apparently cannot tell which weather archive to use and seems to always draw from the system time- which in my case will always be incorrect. It's a catch-22 because in order to get full texture updates FS must be closed, but FS can't be closed in order to get the proper textures for the weather I want to fly in because AS6 then will use the incorrect weather to caluculate from!Second, the initial calculation of the weather is incorrect because it is using the wrong date. If I were to go ahead and launch FS at this point, and set up my flight- AS will refresh using the incorrect weather- then at the end of the refresh it will seem to load the correct Wx archive and re-process. Therefore there are a total of 2 Wx updates in the beginning, one incorrect one followed by a correct one. Another side-effect of this is that the "Auto Refresh AI on 1st WX" will refresh the AI to the first, incorrect, weather- and thus I have to manally refresh the AI after the 2nd refresh.I can see how this problem goes away if I were flying in "real time" as then the time I intend to set in FS matches that of my system clock, which then makes AS6 use the correct weather for both processing and textures. The thing is though that it seems like the process "works" in real time only due to the fact the coincidentally I would set the FS time to be the same as the system time, which AS6 seems to always use when processing weather and updating textures!Note that once FS is started and all the weather finally gets synched on the correct archive sequences, it works just fine and will continue to update weather from the pre-downloaded archive files. But notice though that the sky textures will not be correct because they can only be updated when FS is closed.Here are the relevant settings in my configuration screen-Online Updates- OFF (Off because I always fly using sequences of pre-downloaded weather archives)Start Paused -ONUnpause on FS Ready Status -ONAuto Refresh AI -ONTAF Processing -ONUse System Time (vs FS Time)-OFF (note that AS6 still apparently uses system time even though this is off!)Auto Timezone Detect -ONEnable Offline Sequence Playback -ONAuto Set FS Time on Archive DL -ONIs there some kind of procedure that I am not following correctly in order for me to get the desired effect? To me this seems like a bug in the operation of the program, unless I am not doing something correctly.Thanks for any help you can provideRuahrcPS What is the point of "pre-processing" the weather in AS6 with your flight plan? I thought this was a relic from previous versions of AS where it was necessary so that AS could calculate in smooth wind changes. However, with the more current releases of the program, does not FSUIPC smooth the wind changes anyways? If I fly VFR I do not "pre-load" my route and I still get smooth wind changes, because FSUIPC is smoothing them out anyways. Therefore, what effect on the weather does "processing" have? IMO, even reading the Navlog forecast report is useless because it is all based on the weather from that particular single data file- so your destination 3000nm away may be reporting clear skies at the time of your departure, but once you actually reach there 6 hours later the weather and winds could have changed significantly- making the data in the navlog worthless.

Hi,Thanks for the detailed post!After looking over your procedure I think the only problem is that you should not start paused.So it should be:--plan flight--download weather--load first weather file. At that point AS should use that file for time and date.--import plan and process. If Auto Submit ASG is On and Wx Themes are choosen then textures are now set.--start FSFlight plans are needed for: setting Wx Influenced textures or at least your departure airport, for GE Pro owners for textures, for FlightWatch, for any forced options. It is not needed for wind smoothing. Yes, the winds could change in 6 hours, much like the real world!!Please look this over and let us know.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/

Jim-thanks for the tip. It seems like changing my options to not start paused helps, but still does not completely solve the problem. Starting unpaused seems to force AS6 to use the correct weather file, but it is still interpreting the "time" as the current system time because FS is not open. Therefore I think the textures are being selected based on the Dynamic TAF calculation from the (now correct) weather archive. Disabling Dynamic TAF might fix this, but then I lose that capability (which is useful if I go flying in remote areas where hourly updates to METARs is not common).Furthermore, the location seems to be always the default location as defined in the options. For example, my default location is set as KSEA. If I start a fight from KDEN or KDFW, I can load it in the flight plan and make AS6 aware of it, but since AS started "unpaused" it still begins writing weather for KSEA upon first load of the flight, regardless of where I am.Getting closer though. Any more ideas?Ruahrc

Hi,If you are reading the 2 times that appear at the top of the main ASv6 window then yes those are always going to show system time. Your system clock is where we get that data. The important time for you is the Active wx line.So knowing that, go back to the Start Paused method with your archived first file loaded before you do any refresh. Keep TAFs On for the reasons you gave.That is OK as you can still enter a plan and re-write textures as long as FS is not open.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/

Okay followed your suggestions again. Pause back on- leave TAF processing on. This seems to sort out the time issues- the location issues I am pretty sure got solved by enabling "ignore FS location until ready status". That way when I load the FP and process, it knows my departure airport, and ignores any changes from FS until I'm sitting on the ramp.I think things are working properly now. First test flight so far so good, will need to do a couple more.Ruahrc