I bought OPUS and have done 2 flights today with it. Granted the areas I flew in didn't really have any clouds or weather I did seem to have a run in with some wind issues and wanted to get a perspective on it.

 

I was descending into Denver and around 24K down I had some noticeable wind shifts. I had a headwind the entire flight that switched abruptly to a tailwind. Further into my descent and closer to Denver I had several fluctuations where my speed went from 280 indicated to 230 and then back up to around 260. During this I watched the wind direction indicator trying to make up it's mind. Went from a headwind to a tail and then finally to a slight cross which turned into being my tailwind in landing matching the winds of the Denver METAR.

 

My overall question is, having read through many posts and threads on here, having smooth weather and weather transitions is supposed to be a key core feature of using OPUS as opposed to other weather generators, why did I have the dramatic wind shifts? Did I just happen to cross over a wind direction boundary? I understand that Aloft winds are due to come shortly, just wanted to get a fix on it.

We've been doing a great deal of testing to try and get to grips with these wind shifts. We have now identified three distinct wind calculation errors within FSX, so when we refer to the FSX winds aloft bug we really mean bugs.

 

This has clarified a few things and made us realise no amount of tweaking or user options will be able to both eradicate the problem and still give you anything resembling true surface winds when you land. We have therefore come to the conclusion that it is time for simplification. and that is what we are working on now.

 

The normal 'Lower' Wind Smoothing will still be used (default 15 + 15) for normal operation, that should prevent problems for people flying low and slow and still give a very good chance of keeping to the true surface winds when you land.

 

A new 'Upper' Wind Stabilisation option will be provided in the form of a simple checkbox, a configurable Recovery Altitude (RA, default 19000 feet) setting, and a Max Allowed Wind Deviation (default 15 degrees) setting. These options will be for high and fast jet and airliner flyers. By high I mean above 19000 feet.

 

We are now concentrating on the recovery process in an attempt to maximise the chance of recovering the surface winds when you descend below the RA. The recovery will be based on a calculated safe surface wind deviation in addition to the user's configured Max Allowed Wind Deviation. If either test passes the LWE will attempt to recover the surface winds. After recovery the normal 'Lower' Wind Smoothing will be applied throughout your descent.

 

These changes and checks are going to take a little time so please be patient. Each test has to be conducted at three or four different locations around the globe which all takes time.

 

In the meantime, if you are experiencing wind shifts then please try un-ticking the current 'Relax Surface Wind Smoothing' option, and if that fails, just set your TA and RA to something reasonably low like 15000 and 13000, or even 0.

Thanks for the response. I think once you get the GRIB winds aloft data implemented and the fact that you already have the surface wind down in hand that the main problem to take would be the "shift" between going through the layer between upper and lower and making the transition and "recovering" as smooth as possible. I look forward to it.