Wow! Looking fwd to get my hands on b9 :-)

 

Anyway, I was already pretty much satisfied with b8...

 

Adding OSM2XP-generated scenery for Portugal, Spain, etc... gives x-plane10 an even better look :-)

Well, overall a positive / thumbs up for beta9, smooth, default aircraft feeling fine, winds in clouds appear to have been tuned down but I still find the effects of variable winds, even if faint, causing way too much bouncing/kicking on all aircraft.

 

Just now I was approaching LPPT 03 on the C90, and then with the Baron58, where the reported METAR reads:

 

32006KT 300V360

 

and my aircraft where being severely shacked :-/

 

This really should be fixed....IMHO

Totally agree with you jcomm.

 

The new beta9 does seem very stable. There have been many METARS in the UK of late reporting variable light winds, but XP10's way of simulating this is absolutely over the top, with GA aircraft being unflyable. METAR reports with variable winds are more often than not when these winds are light in good weather and if this depiction is accurate in XP there wouldn't be any GA aircraft flying!

 

I have now started inputing the weather myself from the METAR report. Interestingly when you change from rw weather to input yourself, the weather page shows these light/variable winds with a turbulence setting of 2 or 3 which seems way over the top and incorrect. I really want to use the downloaded real weather but find this is totally unrealistic behaviour.

 

Please LR listen to what people are saying and sort this out.

Hi Simon

I can safely say that LR DOES listen, but not to opinions or statements like "the turbulence is too strong. It needs to be turned down."

Austin will always listen to customers and developers but ONLY if they can provide accurate figures for the aircraft and it's crosswind components. It's impossible to fix something if you don't know what's broken or how it is broken.

Send him an email or bug report and outline the type of aircraft, the METARS that were downloaded, charts from the original aircraft with crosswind components and anything else that can help.

Personally, I've added inertia and changed a few figures in several aircraft that I knew were incorrect and now they fly just fine. When I say "Just fine", I mean they don't bounce around like tissue paper in the wind.

The turbulence needs to be turned down Goran, we've been down this road before. Was flying your Duchess yesterday (still love it) in 8kt winds and it was all I could do to hold on. Austin has to be very aware of this by now, yet it's still the same as it was many months ago. People keep telling us how intelligent he is, I'm sure with the number of complaints he's received about the overdone turbulence he can figure out what the problem is without the average user having to send overly detailed information. We as users could care less if "HE" feels it's overdone, there's enough users who do find it overdone, so do something about it. Always seems to be a problem with real weather.

 

Please tell me exactly what I need to change in Plane Maker on the Duchess to make it fly more like "real world" in light winds, as Austin seems reluctant to change the problematic code. An aircraft the size and weight of the Duchess will not be close to flipping over in 6-8kt variable winds, yet the one I'm flying does.

 

Glen

Goran,

 

some things can't simply be measured other than qualitatively, like the effects of the way X-Plane translates a METAR reporting variable winds to the it's weather parameters.

 

All I can say, as a RL pilot, and when using even the most heavy aircraft in X-Plane, yes, default, but certainly not lacking that much inertia, is that the way it feels, with the aircraft bouncing all over is simply inconsistent with a mere 6 knot variable wind.

 

As you know in RL I fly gliders, which are extremely sensible to air currents (put in a rather simplistic way...), and I would be in trouble if on days with much stronger winds and variability my glider was bounced that way.

 

I usually observe from the inside and outside views when I make my reports.

 

It is either the too intense turbulence set when a METAR includes a variable wind field, or something else, but, it is not correct!

Hi Glen and Jcomm

I'm not disagreeing with you both. I'm not saying there is no problem with the turbulence. It may very well be overdone. My point is, Austin needs details. Not just "The turbulence is too strong".

Re the Duchess, I've made quite a few refinements for the upcoming update...including inertia tweaks and CG adjustments. To "fix" it with a set of instructions would take far too long. By all means, when it comes out, feel free to dissect it in Planemaker and make comparisons to see what I did.

Hi Glen and Jcomm

I'm not disagreeing with you both.

 

I know Goran ;-)

 

Anyway, all being said about this details with X-Plane10, I still prefer much more X-Plane's weather to what I used to have in FSX regarding turbulence effects which were, even at the highest possible levels, almost inexistent in that sim.

 

I also prefer the way X-Plane translates other aspects of METAR code into it's weather settings, such as cloud coverage, etc...

 

Looking at the weather settings screen after downloading a METAR with variable winds I do see the turbulence slider usually set as high as 1 or 2, sometimes even more... This may well be the problem....

 

Such levels of turbulence should only be set. IMHO, with much higher wind intensities, reports of shear, or weather consistent with turbulent conditions such as convective clouds, intense precipitations, thunderstorms, etc...

http://forum.avsim.n...s/#entry2455021

 

After all, this pretty much means I ended up understanding Goran's point... Send Austin plausible/accurate data instead of simply complaining....

 

After thinking more about the all subject of turbulence modelling when using RW METAR data to set the weather on a flight simulator, which is certainly a VERY COMPLEX and non-deterministic process, I believe that the best I can do is to either accept just as it is now, and indeed I do prefer X-Plane's weather model over those used by FSX (including weather injectors) or even ELITE, and manually adjust turbulence when I don't think it is ok, or try to write down some ideas and send it to Laminar Research so that, if they find the time, they can also think more about this rather complex subject.

 

:-)

 

Ah! And, YES beta 9 solved the weird turbulence when entering clouds, or at least I wasn't able to find any during a few tests with cloud layers not associated with highly convective clouds (thunderstorms...) :-)

Re the Duchess, I've made quite a few refinements for the upcoming update...including inertia tweaks and CG adjustments. To "fix" it with a set of instructions would take far too long. By all means, when it comes out, feel free to dissect it in Planemaker and make comparisons to see what I did.

 

Thanks Goran, look forward to the update. Just to add a bit, I've found that I don't need to be anywhere near clouds to see the turbulence I talk about. The other day I was on final to my local airport and the winds were again in the 6-8kt range and I was fighting like crazy to not only keep the aircraft upright, but in line with the runway. It was bucking like a wild bronco, no where near a representation of "real life" conditions. The output data for weather showed turbulence to be .125 if I remember correctly, which seems to be quite a bit in the sim. With the winds what they were, and only living a few miles from my local airport, I can assure you the airport would have been shut down with the conditions I experienced on final in Xplane, not realistic at all, because planes were coming and going all day long.

 

Glen

Hi Goran

 

I'm not disagreeing with you both. I'm not saying there is no problem with the turbulence. It may very well be overdone. My point is, Austin needs details.

 

If you are not disagreeing with what we are a saying, just out of interest have you bought this problem up with Austin? I am sure that as developer of several aircraft(excellent aircraft I might add), you are in a far better position to put this problem across knowing the ins and outs of your aircraft.

 

At the end of the day it is a problem that is not specific to any one aircraft, including much larger aircraft, this suggests to me it is not a problem that is too hard to replicate and therefore fix.

 

jcomm and Glen have you or are you intending to send an email to Austin regarding this? I may well do as we are all saying it is where variable winds are reported in the METAR and then the turbulence is set too high in the weather settings. To me this is where the problem lies.

 

Looking forward to your update for the Duchess Goran. Still my aircraft of choice with TK's Mu2.

jcomm and Glen have you or are you intending to send an email to Austin regarding this?

 

Yes, I've actually exchanged a couple of emails with Austin regarding this.

 

Anyway, just in case you haven't seen my latest post on the subject, I am suggesting a different approach, and I will try to find a possible "algorithm" to set turbulence levels according to the information one can extract from a METAR, which is NILL in this particular aspect...

 

When LR or ELITE implemented their weather models they had to make a choice. There is simply no way of accurately calculating turbulence from a METAR string, so, ELITE chose to inject no turbulence at all, while Austin opted for various turbulence levels (I have seen 1, 2 and even level 3) when variable winds are reported (and certainly under other circumstances too). His choice is at least better IMHO than the poor - very poor - turbulence model I had in FSX, where even the strongest levels (Extreme) gently shake you Cessna...

 

What I do now is a manual edit of the turbulence when I am not satisfied with the value set by the simulator. A way to do it without having to switch to the Weather screen would be great, or a new algorithm (?)....

 

I will thinks about it and debate the problem tomorrow with my colleagues at the MetOffice @ LPPT :-)

What I do now is a manual edit of the turbulence when I am not satisfied with the value set by the simulator.

 

When I did this it was actually spot on, but now I just input the METAR reading into the weather screen manually for my departure and then halfway through the flight change it to my destinations METAR.

 

What you are proposing to do, reading your other thread also, sounds good.

Hi Goran

 

 

 

If you are not disagreeing with what we are a saying, just out of interest have you bought this problem up with Austin? I am sure that as developer of several aircraft(excellent aircraft I might add), you are in a far better position to put this problem across knowing the ins and outs of your aircraft.

 

At the end of the day it is a problem that is not specific to any one aircraft, including much larger aircraft, this suggests to me it is not a problem that is too hard to replicate and therefore fix.

 

jcomm and Glen have you or are you intending to send an email to Austin regarding this? I may well do as we are all saying it is where variable winds are reported in the METAR and then the turbulence is set too high in the weather settings. To me this is where the problem lies.

 

Looking forward to your update for the Duchess Goran. Still my aircraft of choice with TK's Mu2.

 

When I say I don't disagree, it also means I partially agree. I am no expert in meteorology, but if a flight model I make is getting tossed around excessively, and yes, it has happened to previous flight models, I take a look at what I can adjust in the flight model first before placing the blame on the sim itself. I've already made a few adjustments in the Duchess that have all but eliminated what I would consider excessive bouncing around in XP10. Are these adjustments accurate? I like to think so. Austin is far more intelligent than I am when it comes to this stuff and I like to think he knows what he is doing. This is the reason I only partially agree with the excessive turbulence being present. Because its effects can be reduced with a few adjustments in the aircraft's flight model which I believe are the correct adjustments. Jcomm even found this out with the ground roll and the aircraft yawing on the runway. He changed the friction coefficient of the wheels and, IIRC, the yawing stopped. All it takes is 1 small adjustment in the flight model (which can sometimes be very hard to spot) that can fix a big "problem".

I find the turbulence in beta 9 very much improved. Yesterday, I flew from KPWA to KPNC with a wind gusting 15kt to 22 kt from 150 degrees, a little bouncy but acceptable. at KPNC there was rain and storms again the simulator did very well. Was always in control, without having to over control the aileron inputs.

 

Now the frequency of the gusts still seems to be a little high, but the intensity was quite diminished to what it used to be.