Hi, team:

 

Is there a working software product that can be merged into the NGX or is there a mod to the NGX that will allow semi-authentic weather radar displays? It would be nice to see what is in the towering cumulus and CB's that I'm about to fly into.

 

Thanks.

 

Kev

Maybe a realityXP product? not sure.

 

Also any weather radar that uses FSX, wont show you "What is in" the CB's you are about to fly into. They only show you where they are and how big they are. This is a limitation of FSX and every single weather radar you have will act the same way, unless they 'make up' data and display "an interesting pattern of green and red spludges at random" - which some do.

 

This is why PMDG didn't put a WX radar in the plane to begin with.

 

Now how to get the RealityXP weather radar into the NGX so it shows up in the Nav display, is entirely beyond my skills. I know its been done for the JS4100 and maybe the old 737NG for FS9, but I havn't seen anything for the NGX like that. Maybe because I havn't been looking, maybe because it's not out there...

 

The RealityXP Weather Radar Gauge modified into the NGX someway is probably going to be your best bet. (BTW I highly reccomend the RealityXP GNS430/530 in use with GA aircraft like the Realair Duke or Lancair Legacy -

)

Please for everyone's sake do a forum search. This has been posted so many times I think it's the most reoccurring forum topic in the PMDG forums.

I did the forum search. Everything seemed to point specifically to non-NGX platforms. I'll work harder on improving my search functionality... :search:

looks like your having a great introduction in here hope it improves for you:)

Maybe a realityXP product? not sure.

 

Also any weather radar that uses FSX, wont show you "What is in" the CB's you are about to fly into. They only show you where they are and how big they are. This is a limitation of FSX and every single weather radar you have will act the same way, unless they 'make up' data and display "an interesting pattern of green and red spludges at random" - which some do.

 

This is why PMDG didn't put a WX radar in the plane to begin with.

 

Now how to get the RealityXP weather radar into the NGX so it shows up in the Nav display, is entirely beyond my skills. I know its been done for the JS4100 and maybe the old 737NG for FS9, but I havn't seen anything for the NGX like that. Maybe because I havn't been looking, maybe because it's not out there...

 

The RealityXP Weather Radar Gauge modified into the NGX someway is probably going to be your best bet. (BTW I highly reccomend the RealityXP GNS430/530 in use with GA aircraft like the Realair Duke or Lancair Legacy -

)

 

I saw that online. Perhaps I'll delve into that deeper. Appreciate it.

 

Kev

 

looks like your having a great introduction in here hope it improves for you:)

 

Yep... me too. I thought I was the only one who noticed that. :ph34r:

I think it's the most reoccurring forum topic in the PMDG forums.

 

No, I think that honor goes to the "can PMDG develop the A3XX?" threads.

I did the forum search. Everything seemed to point specifically to non-NGX platforms. I'll work harder on improving my search functionality... :search:

 

There is a thread that details how to add the realityxp500 wx to the lower DU of the NGX.

It works but you lose the functionality of the eng/hydraulics page, you lose fps, and reverting the panel code produces errors in that display until a reinstall.

 

I don't have a link to the thread which is why I suggested searching for it.

My advice is to stay away from modding the NGX this way as it causes more problems then what it gives you which isn't much.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk...typing errors imminent

Well, thanks for that advice. I hadn't seen that thread. I'd rather live without the wx radar than live with a knackered NGX.

 

Kev

I can tell you from years of RL experience on the water and spending time in full scale Bridge simulators for training. All simulated radar is atrocious and unrealistic I don't think it is the fault of the simulator it just doesn't look right at all and never lines up with what you are seeing out the windows....just a ship handlers opinion.

 

No, I think that honor goes to the "can PMDG develop the A3XX?" threads.

 

How about "will PMDG develop an A3XX with Wx radar?" :Clown:

OK, to summarize, Reality XP will screw up the PMDG product and is just nice to look at. No real sim value in this context, but probably a good product for those who want this kind of thing, and the product looks well done. No slur intended against Reality XP.

 

PMDG didn't include wx radar because there's no way to do it right.

 

FSX seems to only show precipitation in a circle around your aircraft. I've seen this strange thing.

 

Here's an idea that is beyond my sim programming skills, but for PMDG or a third party, might be a potential next great thing:

 

We have what seems like 10-20 "real wx" engines out there, plus the one built into FSX.

 

Could the wx radar be tied into "real world wx conditions" settings, and d/n work if you're not flying "real world" weather. Can NOAA or other similar feeds be fed into the wx radar portion of the sim in this case (snapshotted in say a 5-10 min interval)? Then, it would actually be working with real data and the cloud formation from the wx engine like REX or ActiveSkyX could be generated concurrently... Just an idea.

 

Kev

Could the wx radar be tied into "real world wx conditions" settings, and d/n work if you're not flying "real world" weather. Can NOAA or other similar feeds be fed into the wx radar portion of the sim in this case (snapshotted in say a 5-10 min interval)? Then, it would actually be working with real data and the cloud formation from the wx engine like REX or ActiveSkyX could be generated concurrently

 

It doesn't work like this, and again this has been discussed extensively in multiple threads already.

 

The short version:

 

There is zero precipitation in FSX. What you see outside the window is a curtain effect that follows your aircraft like a bubble. Rain doesn't fall 20 miles ahead of you.

As you move through each wx reporting station, whatever wx engine you're using will take the METAR and tell FSX to turn on/off the rain bubble around your aircraft. That's why at times it will be a deluge outside your plane and then like a light switch it's all gone.

 

Since there is zero precipitation, there is nothing for any simulated wx radar to pickup with the simulated radar beams. In fact the only thing you see on the wx display is simulated red, orange, and green blobs that originate from the wx radar itself...not from FSX and not from any wx generator. The blobs should really all resemble a giant mickey mouse head for all the accuracy they have, which is 0%.

 

Any wx radar that's ever been developed for FSX/FS9/any Microsoft simulator is purely eye candy.

It doesn't work like this, and again this has been discussed extensively in multiple threads already.

 

The short version:

 

There is zero precipitation in FSX. What you see outside the window is a curtain effect that follows your aircraft like a bubble. Rain doesn't fall 20 miles ahead of you.

As you move through each wx reporting station, whatever wx engine you're using will take the METAR and tell FSX to turn on/off the rain bubble around your aircraft. That's why at times it will be a deluge outside your plane and then like a light switch it's all gone.

 

Since there is zero precipitation, there is nothing for any simulated wx radar to pickup with the simulated radar beams. In fact the only thing you see on the wx display is simulated red, orange, and green blobs that originate from the wx radar itself...not from FSX and not from any wx generator. The blobs should really all resemble a giant mickey mouse head for all the accuracy they have, which is 0%.

 

Any wx radar that's ever been developed for FSX/FS9/any Microsoft simulator is purely eye candy.

 

You are absolutely correct, and that's what I said in summary.

 

However, I've now read many of the other weather radar threads, and no one has suggested (that I have found) that real, actual, live Doppler radar data be coupled to the sim. If I'm flying over a super cell in Kansas or a rainy cold front in Germany, both of these real world events have data coupled to them. Maybe I'm too dense to get this, so I'll ask; is the "real time weather" in REX or FSX or ActiveSkyX "realtime", or not? If you have rain with 3500 broken/5000 scattered/8000 overcast at KJAX, then the sim engine should give you that cloud structure. The wx radar could be fed from a NOAA data stream to provide a real approximation of the precip. Doesn't matter about the actual precip visible to me because at 250 KIAS it's just going to stream by the windscreen, which is just another visual effect.

 

At this point my comment is just a "what if", not a "how to". I concede that there is no real actual wx radar for FSX at this time, as I'd previously agreed to. I'm just throwing this out there for PMDG to consider or someone else as well - food for thought, if you will.

 

Kev

Okay, here goes:

 

This is a problem in the real world as it is in the sim. A lot of the weather digests are just as backwards as the weather injection in Flight Sim. You'd imagine that the National Weather Service would have some sort of way to determine what the weather is at nearly any point in the United States, but they don't.

 

Here's what we have:

-Localized radar, but contrary to popular belief, there are gaps in coverage, and each radar has somewhat of a squelch feature. Ever see a blue cone around the radar site? Since there's no precip, the sensitivity has been dialed up to pick up lighter precip, which means the radar will pick up moisture closer to it, giving you the blue circle.

-METARs, but there are several gaps in coverage. For what radius is a METAR valid? What if there are two right next to each other with vastly different data? Does the change gradually occur, or is there a front 50/50 between them?

-Wind aloft reports (not going to help in generating a radar picture)

-PIREPs (not really going to help in generating a radar picture)

 

Here's an example of the radar "squelch":

 

The circles are over southern Ohio, all over Indiana, and in SE VA. Those circles don't necessarily mean precip, rather, that local station's sensitivity has been increased in order to see showery precip should it occur. So, using this method to infer precip in the sim isn't necessarily going to give you accurate precip, even when porting real Doppler into the sim.

(If the sensitivity thing interests you, research vcp)

 

So, while that method may be clever to generate a radar picture and then force trigger the rain effect in the sim, it's not as accurate as you'd like it to be, as it's a composite. The radar return from the NWS is a composite of the altitudes (again, see vcp here), whereas the returns on your sim radar would be at whatever angle you adjusted the radar to, based on your altitude. In other words, the NWS radar is multiple slices. Your sim radar would be a single slice.

 

Even in the real world, when we look at radar, we're only checking for precip and strength of precip. In order to come to understand real world conditions across the NAS, we all turn to digests of METARs, which is what the weather programs all do.

 

Here's the trick, though:

United's weather model is different from Delta's, which is different from Southwest's, which is different from the FAA's (they all built/contracted different programs - the FAA is trying to remedy this with a "common weather picture" initiative in NextGen). Just like your REX is different from my AS2012, which is slightly different from someone else's ASE. Granted, when you're simulating a weather radar in a sim, the weather in your sim is the only one that matters, but the issues remain.

 

Aside from radar, METARs are the only near-real-time data we have for various weather programs to digest into some semblance of a weather picture, but they are not a complete weather picture. They are occasionally incorrect (on my flight last weekend, the JYO METAR showed lightning distant and there was no chance*). Additionally, how do you determine weather en route with drastic changes? When I flew on my birthday two years ago, my original destination was reporting a ceiling of 400' and 3/4SM vis. The airport I went into instead was severe clear, and it is only 6.9nm away. They're both located in a plain, but SHD is closer to the Luray Valley, which was "spilling" valley clouds out over it (the airports are KVBW and KSHD, and you can see how the terrain affects them here).

 

Most weather programs mitigate this by interpolation for smoothing, but with such drastic changes some of them have difficulties. So, even with "real" weather injection through METARs (what we use currently), it's hard to generate an accurate picture. It's also nearly impossible to give any sort of upper air precip picture through digesting METAR data (remember, METAR data comes from ground stations, primarily reporting conditions on the ground, with limited other features like cloud altitudes). Granted, I'm not sure what other information these weather programs are ingesting, but there isn't much else out there.

 

*If you're bored, there are more videos here along with the narrative of the flight

Also, if you generally hate my guts, you can also see me getting punished by crosswinds in those videos :wink: