Like many fellow simmers, I find the whole flight sim experience so totally immersive that some of the inevitable flaws, I find easy to forgive or forget. One aspect, however, that started as a niggle has developed into complete frustration. This is the inability for many airports to take account the prevailing wind direction and direct traffic preparing to take off or land on to the appropriate runway/s. I use ASV 6.5 as my weather engine and normally (but not always) start this application first, download the latest weather before starting FS9. Yesterday, for example EGGL showed wind at 270 at 10. I even checked from the garden over flying aircraft that indeed were taking off from 27L. But when I booted up FS9 everything was taking off from 9R. In fact traffic flying from Luton and Gatwick were all departing in an easterly direction. For Heathrow and Gatwick I use Gary Summons superb extreme scenery. I only mention this because I read somewhere it was all down to the Afcad. Anyway, if anyone has any bright ideas or if I am doing something wrong any advice would be very helpful. Many thanks.Tristan.

I am sure that you really meant to say 'EGLL' Heathrow?Load the flight in the 'Create a Flight' page, make sure that the departure is from the 'active' runway, download your weather and when it's done. go fly.You will then be at the true active runway. ;) Most people start from the ramp and when you call for clearance you will be directed to the correct runway for departure. Let me know if it works okay?

Here's what I normally do:I wait until the weather update from ASv to FS9 is complete, then I click on the Refresh AI button.This ensures that FS9 uses the new weather information to choose the runway.You can also check if the ATIS radio information has the correct weather information. If so, the runway should be the right one.However: if a runway is marked as Closed for takeoff in the AFCAD, it will never be used - regardless of the wind direction.Hope this helps - Norman

I am sure that you really meant to say 'EGLL' Heathrow?Hi Dave, sorry I really didn't know what I was thinking of. Of course it is EGLL. Thanks for your suggestion. The only problem I can see with that is that my flight will start from the runway rather than the gate. Is that you are suggesting ? Norman, I have tried your suggestion and it didn't help although I appreciate you recommending it. Tristan.

TristanThat's a bit wierd, as the Refresh AI button always does the trick for me. Forgive me if this a stupid question, but are you sure that FSUIPC is installed and up to date?Maybe also try reposting in the HiFi Sim support section here; you may get a quicker (and much more professional) reply than I could give you.Hope you get it sorted.

For some reason FS9 set rwys 09L/R as active rwy for take off and landings with up to 10knots tail wind! You definately need to configure your afcad to make say rwy 09L-27R landing and rwy 09R-27L as take off and make sure your initial wind strength is above 10 kts.Try heathrow 2008 update try this in avsim library.Vololiberista

Here's what I normally do:I wait until the weather update from ASv to FS9 is complete, then I click on the Refresh AI button.This ensures that FS9 uses the new weather information to choose the runway.You can also check if the ATIS radio information has the correct weather information. If so, the runway should be the right one.However: if a runway is marked as Closed for takeoff in the AFCAD, it will never be used - regardless of the wind direction.Hope this helps - Norman

What is the REFRESH AI BUTTON? jerrycwo4

What is the REFRESH AI BUTTON? jerrycwo4

This is a button on the ASv6.5 user interface.According to the manual, it does the following:

“Refresh AI” will move the time ahead in FS by 2 minutes, forcing an AI traffic reload. This can be handy if loading new weather and you want FS AI and ATC to adhere to the new wind direction.

Regards - Norman

Vololiberista, I am staggered by your reply. I really did not know this and it answers a lot questions. Its a shame for us living in the UK as most weather weather systems come from the west, so we have kind of lost out right from the start. I would say 90% of the time I am landing or departing on an easterly runway. Interestingly I had a chat with a captain flying for BMI who says that around 70% of landings at EGLL ( I got it right this time !!) are carried out on 26L/R. So you can see the decrepancy. In fact most of their flight crews program their FMC on an anticipated landing at 26R/L way before entering UK airspace. I will check out the link you have given me, although I am not sure it applies to Heathrow extreme and Gavin I will try the ' refresh AI' button again and see where it gets me. Any other ideas would be appreciated. Tristan.

I am sure that you really meant to say 'EGLL' Heathrow?Hi Dave, sorry I really didn't know what I was thinking of. Of course it is EGLL. Thanks for your suggestion. The only problem I can see with that is that my flight will start from the runway rather than the gate. Is that you are suggesting ? Tristan.

No, You can start from either.The important thing is to keep OUT of the sim until you have downloaded the weather after first selecting the ACTIVE in the 'Create a Flight' menu.

I remember having the same problem a while back.The solution was once you had everything set up,ASV6 etc, advance your time by 1 minute and everything will be good.Cant remember why it was doing, just remember the solution.

For testing. Print out the ASV6.5 navlog (I usually select the "all" version - it helps with FMC settings) to get the EGLL METAR. After starting FS and loading your flight (parked is OK) in AS click the REFRESH button. A minute or so AFTER weather updates are complete click in AS the REFRESH AI button and wait a minute. In FS do the control-Z thing until your winds are displayed. Do they match within reason the METAR? The FS display uses true heading for winds and ATIS uses magnetic heading so allow for this. METARs use true wind heading. Then go ahead and check ATIS. Another reply here stated that 10 knots headwind component is the threshold for FS to use wind determined active runways otherwise the preferred runway is used. AFCAD will show the runway list for preference and the primary and secondary assignments in the runway properties determine the "no wind" preferred end apart from other properties. The steps in this paragraph check first that the weather is getting to FS and then that the ATIS/AI follow for active assignments under the conditions I mentioned.A setting to check in FS weather is that dynamic weather changes are set to off when using AS. Other helpful things is to have a suitable aircraft (I use the Baron) parked at the ramp cold and dark, a daytime summer setting, and THE CLEAR WEATHER THEME saved as the default flight. The default flight initializes FS startup even when just the menus are loaded. (If you look in your modules folder at the FSUIPC.log with notepad you'll see the clear all weather entry once or twice. All of my saved parking situations are C&D with the Clear Weather Theme so I see it twice - once when FS starts and again when my parked flight is loaded.)Another technique I use in AS is to download the weather archive at the FS Zulu time of the flight. AS is set to use the FS time as well in its options. I do this to insure the weather matches the FS time of day since time of day affects weather environment characteristics of winds and temperature (and solar effects for thermals simulated by AS).It never hurts to update to the current version of FSUIPC here:http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html

From my reading of the thread, you never mentioned what the wind was *in FS* after loading. If the wind in FS is favoring a certain runway, then that will be the runway assigned (typically).Other things that will influence this is if an ILS approach is assigned to one runway (or one runway end) and not the other. In that case, until the wind becomes significant FS will use the runway (or runway end) with the ILS approach. And if the weather is IMC it will always use the ILS end/runway, no matter the wind.Hope this helps,

...You can also check if the ATIS radio information has the correct weather information. If so, the runway should be the right one.However: if a runway is marked as Closed for takeoff in the AFCAD, it will never be used - regardless of the wind direction.Hope this helps - Norman

Tristan,Debugger made an interesting suggestion about listening into the ATIS. I would load up your desired Active Sky weather, then load up your flight. Check is the ATIS information matches.I'm hoping it doesn't and leads you in the right direction, but since you have not mentioned any problems with your weather, the answer might be yes. :( The only problem I first had with ASv6.5 was when I had my weather set to "User Defined", but my Weather Change Fequency slider still set to change very frequently (I can't remember the exact name of the highest setting :( , sorry). That problem led to FS changing the weaather that I just loading with ASv6.5. Maybe your weather is changing from your initial load.Loading in the Active runway and comparing the ATIS with what ASv6.5 says is loaded are just ways to diagnose not a good fix. :( You can download the AFCAD2.21 program and check to see what AFCADS you have for EGLL. Maybe there is an active AFCAD that only has runway 9.I hope you find a solution to your problem.Niyoko

Firstly thanks everyone for your most useful replies. Over the last couple of days I have experiment quite a bit with all the suggestions made and I believe, I have now resolved the issue. Here is what I do.Start fs9 in the normal way so the aircraft is sitting at the gate, runway, ramp etc ready to fly. Hit Shift Z so you can see the current weather displayed in red on the top left hand screen in FS9. This should show the FS9 default weather 360 @ 0. Launch ASv6.5 whereby it will automatically download load the latest weather into FS9. Hit the