We all accept that weather is changeable and that we should not take too much for granted. That certainly seems to apply to FSX as well. Let me give you an example!

 

Today I checked the weather for Melbourne Australia where I start from most often. My ATIS feed from Twitter was not available and seems to have stopped updating a week ago so I went to other sources for wind speed and direction so I could select the appropriate runway and this is what I found.

 

I received the following for Melbourne Airport from;

 

rwy34.com - 350/15

Rex weather - 230/10

BOM (Weather bureau here) - 240/15

FSX (without Rex loading) - 208/12

 

I made the mistake last night of using REX weather solely and finished up trying to land the NGX with an 18 knot tail wind instead of the expected 12 knot headwind.So what to use? I know AS2012 is out there but I am using a dual core 2.66 cpu on a laptop so I doubt it would cope.

 

Gerry

Can you copy and paste the METAR in here?

Johan,

 

This is from REX.

 

YMML 052200Z 230/10kt CAVOK 19/13 Q1010 NOSIG

 

regards

 

Gerry

Gday Gerry

Have you heard of Opusfsx, its a new weather engine, for fsx, read some of the comments on it , its good stuff, do yourself a favour and check it out.

jeff

I've wondered the same thing (consistency). Only guess is when it is read (how much time delay). It's weird.

 

Here is what I got from NOAA ADDS: YMML 052200Z 23010KT CAVOK 19/13 Q1010 NOSIG (just like the REX).

 

http://www.aviationweather.gov/adds/metars/?station_ids=YMML&std_trans=translated&chk_metars=on&hoursStr=past+12+hours&submitmet=Submit

We all accept that weather is changeable and that we should not take too much for granted. That certainly seems to apply to FSX as well. Let me give you an example!

 

Today I checked the weather for Melbourne Australia where I start from most often. My ATIS feed from Twitter was not available and seems to have stopped updating a week ago so I went to other sources for wind speed and direction so I could select the appropriate runway and this is what I found.

 

I received the following for Melbourne Airport from;

 

rwy34.com - 350/15

Rex weather - 230/10

BOM (Weather bureau here) - 240/15

FSX (without Rex loading) - 208/12

 

I made the mistake last night of using REX weather solely and finished up trying to land the NGX with an 18 knot tail wind instead of the expected 12 knot headwind.So what to use? I know AS2012 is out there but I am using a dual core 2.66 cpu on a laptop so I doubt it would cope.

 

Gerry

 

Gerry, most weather engines use METAR feed from NOAA, and from experience this may differ from other websites.

 

Your best bet is to analyse the weather from the same source.

 

Also keep in mind that some websites give you wind data based at sites other than the airport so they may not be relevant at all.

I now use Actice Sky 2012 for textures & Opus, see link below. Not only do you get consistant weather you get real overcast. Others use REX & Opus & all report much more accuracy.

 

http://www.opussoftware.co.uk/opusfsi.htm

In none of those "disparate" METARs do I see the timestamp.

I have a feeling that's the issue.

Anyway, you should select the runway to land by watching at the METAR that the weather program is injecting into.

I now use Actice Sky 2012 for textures & Opus, see link below. Not only do you get consistant weather you get real overcast. Others use REX & Opus & all report much more accuracy.

 

I believe it works pretty good as long as you fly low and slow.To attempt to use it for the NGX, MD-11 and 747-400 it is useless because the winds aloft make no sense. For climb, ETA, and Descent Forecast it is useless.

 

Michael Cubine

it is useless because the winds aloft make no sense. For climb, ETA, and Descent Forecast it is useless.

 

Does using the various smoothing functions of a registered FSUIPC make it any better?

 

Hook

I have had no issues with Opus weather & I only use the NGX. I have all FSUIPC weather off (registered version). One thing to do though is you must have no weather updates in AS2012.

My sequence for a flight are:- Load Flight sim commander & use its weather download to see winds at departure & arrival. Then I plan route & save to PMDG from flight sim commander. Next I load AS2012 & load textures to suit wx report. Make sure weather updates in AS2012 are deactivated. Then I load Opus & finally FSX & the NGX.

I have not had one issue with winds at altitude or departure & destination.

Next I load AS2012 & load textures to suit wx report. Make sure weather updates in AS2012 are deactivated.

 

Interesting. I would have shut AS2012 down after loading the textures. I'm guessing that possibly AS2012, even though not updating weather, is providing the necessary smoothing... could this be the case?

 

Hook

The reason I keep AS2012 running is because I use 3D Real effects & this wont work if AS2012 is shut down.

No idea if it provides smoothing, never even thought about it until you mentioned it. Interesting.

Running AS2012 and OpusFSX at the same time has the potential to get strange. I don't think I could predict what would happen. So a few questions:

 

Bring up the wind speed and direction with Shift-Z, cycle through them until you find what you need.

 

Are you getting reasonable winds aloft?

Do the winds correlate well with real world winds aloft data?

Are you getting sudden wind shifts on a long flight without time compression?

If you tune a ground ATIS station, do you get the proper ground wind, or is it the same as your winds aloft? (This tells us if DWC is running in AS2012. Which depiction mode do you have set?)

If you tune 122.00 (the AS2012 nearest weather station) does it report your current wind conditions? (Another test for DWC.)

If you tune 122.02 (the AS2012 destination weather, requires a flight plan to be loaded in FSX) do you get reasonable weather conditions for your destination airport? (This tells us that AS2012 is keeping track of the weather.) Does this weather correlate with real world weather data?

 

Hook