Idea to make a weather radar possible

[ArjenVdv 190]

Am I not right, when I say that Majestic are including a top notch weather radar in their dash?

 

IIRC, they have overcome many of the previously perceived FSX limitations that prevent a reasonably accurate rendition.

 

If so, I see no reason why PMDG couldn't do something similar, eventually.

 

Unless I'm missing something of course, which is always a possibility.

 

Yes, I've seen the Majestic Dash 8 having a weather radar on Youtube also most likely using live weather data from the internet. Of course, PMDG can do something similar. But PMDG are perfectionists, and great perfectionists. But when the real thing cannot be reproduced a 100%, doesn't mean you should not reproduce it at all.

The idea of taking weather data from the internet, might not be 100% accurate to what your FSX is showing, but I think 90% of the people wouldn't mind at all. Just having that image on there adds something new to the immersion, and at least you've got something more to do in cruise. For example, in the NGX you can divert from your route in cruise, but if you're honest, how many of you frequently use this feature? I don't, because I don't know what weather is in front of me. If a weather radar gives me a global image of what's in front of me, I can go around any potential storms.

I think PMDG should slowly start to realise that a weather radar is actually possible. Will it be perfect? Nope. Will it add something cool to their planes? Definitely.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Right, but if you haven't read my post, here's the issue:

Weather isn't all at the same altitude.

 

If you're using RW radar images, you're getting a composite, which is slices of the weather at several altitudes. If the weather is all low and you're up at FL380, you may see weather that wouldn't even affect you. If more granular data existed, you could do it well enough, but as it exists now you're not going to pull that idea off very well.

[davidz 26]

Solution: Inject hi-res GRIB data into the sim

 

Much easier said than done, of course!

[pegger74 18]

Just make a system then that looks at the FSX weather, and decides to "simulate" a storm cell out in front of you. Kinda like FSpassengers just decides to kill system on your plane at random. You can choose to go around it if you like, and if you do, you won't see it anyhow because you are trying to avoid it. If you fly through it because you don't feel like simulating weather avoidance, then no harm, no foul. Forget about trying to read all this real world data nonsence that is still subject to the pilot having a look outside and interpret it all.

 

I wish I knew how to program this idea.

[kevinh 409]

The idea of taking weather data from the internet, might not be 100% accurate to what your FSX is showing, but I think 90% of the people wouldn't mind at all. Just having that image on there adds something new to the immersion, and at least you've got something more to do in cruise. For example, in the NGX you can divert from your route in cruise, but if you're honest, how many of you frequently use this feature? I don't, because I don't know what weather is in front of me. If a weather radar gives me a global image of what's in front of me, I can go around any potential storms.

Using real world radar isn't really feasible. The coverage isn't global and as Kyle says it's from ground based radar, so not much use in the air. Also the amount of graphical data to transfer would be huge. Finally not everyone uses real world weather, and the simulated WXR would have to work for them too.

 

Any FSX WXR would therefore have to be based around the weather that FSX is presenting, based on the cloud types being presented and cloud coverage. FSX doesn't create rain anywhere except where the aircraft is, but which storm clouds have rain in them could be arbitrarily determined by the WXR simulation using OAT, dew point, etc to help make the modelling more realistic. It wouldn't be anywhere near exact to the real world but it would at least provide something fairly representative given the conditions.

 

As for there being no effects on the aircraft if you fly through a storm cell, there are two ways to look at this. One is to say "so what?", this isn't a training device. It's really silly to say because I can't do 100% of something I'm not going to bother with the 90% I can do. Someone watching the display could still fly round a storm cell on the radar and therefore the lack of effects is a moot point. There are lots of things in FSX that don't have real world effects if you ignore the warnings. The other way to deal with it is to back drive FSX weather special effects from the sim's relative position of the storm cells as painted on the WXR display. If you fly into such a storm cell the simulation would ramp in 100% turbulence, zero visibility and heavy rain. It wouldn't break the aircraft but it would be a good representation of why you should avoid the cell.

 

There are always ways to do things that appear impossible. It just takes a little lateral thinking. I do hope PMDG are beginning to move away from their very hard stance that it isn't possible to an acceptance that something can be done which would provide a representative WXR display for those who want it.

[taguilo 33]

I think OpusFSX people have big chances to make a very acceptable WX Radar, as they know what is being written on the Weather Themes depicted by FSX.

Bear in mind each cell is only 16 km x 16 km, and depending on its actualization's frequency, it may well detail as high as 8 km in front of an aircraft nose, which seems reasonable to me.

And as the entire system handles up to 64 x 64 cells, the area covered would be bigger than any WX radar can display.

To obtain the same precision, 3rd party developers like PMDG should be able to read the current wx theme, but this would be a difficult task as they'd have to continually check for new injections.

 

Tom

[Airbusman330 300]

My workaround is to use the activesky weather map, that helps with plotting my course.

[pete_auau 1,153]

I think OpusFSX people have big chances to make a very acceptable WX Radar, as they know what is being written on the Weather Themes depicted by FSX.

Bear in mind each cell is only 16 km x 16 km, and depending on its actualization's frequency, it may well detail as high as 8 km in front of an aircraft nose, which seems reasonable to me.

And as the entire system handles up to 64 x 64 cells, the area covered would be bigger than any WX radar can display.

To obtain the same precision, 3rd party developers like PMDG should be able to read the current wx theme, but this would be a difficult task as they'd have to continually check for new injections.

 

Tom

 

Read Ryan post on it above, think he sums it well its not going to happen

[SierraHotel 974]

Solution: Inject hi-res GRIB data into the sim

 

Much easier said than done, of course!

 

Opus uses this now.

[CrewF16 26]

I can't agree with this, as someone else stated, we use GSX etc for realism on the ground, but we don't actually have passengers or cargo. Even though no damage can be sustained flying through a storm/hurricane, it would be nice to be able to re-route to avoid them and great training in the use of the fmc.

 

If this is what you want to do you can get a radar from NEXRAD and put it in your plane. But when you get close to that cell and go around it it won't be outside your window. For that matter you can change course on the FMC without the radar (reroute for a sick passenger lol)

 

Thanks,

Ron

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Again, the problem remains. On a plane flying at FL380, you're not particularly worried about weather down at 6000-10,000 (unless you're descending through that). The radar data that's out there right now includes lower altitudes as part of is composite imagery. For those of you who skipped over my post(s), composite imagery is essentially an average of different angular slices of weather. When you're flying, your aircraft is taking one slice using the settings you've provided on the radar panel. Using composite imagery, you would not be able to actually use the radar panel.

 

I think this is a hard concept for some to grasp because we all watch the Weather Channel, and other news stations as a ground-dwelling person. Even though you're looking at composite imagery, that red blob heading towards me means it's going to be a nasty storm. It means you're probably going to get wet, and it doesn't matter if that cloud is at 3000, 4000, 5000, or 6000 with tops at FL200, FL300 or FL600.

 

In an aircraft, however, you could theoretically have a red cell down at 3000-10,000 and not even feel or see a thing (on the radar) up at FL380.

 

Again, the idea is a great example of out-of-the-box thinking, but because the weather pictures from the radar sites have already been digested in some form (composites of various altitudes, or more properly "elevation angles") it is impossible to extrapolate granular data from it. It's just like taking a lossless audio format and converting it to MP3. No matter how hard you try, you're never going to get that new file from MP3 back to lossless quality.

[Airbusman330 300]

Didn't the Maddog 08 get around this somehow? Whenever I changed the radar tilt lower the images started to appear more and more if I aimed the dish downward towards storms and sometimes the images went away if I tilted it all the way up.

[Tabs 2,790]

Ad 1: as long as radar and outside weather use the same data the picture should be in sync; I could live with a time lag. But if the WX radar uses the same e.g. ASE/ASX data stream then WYSIWYG, isn't it?

 

Yes, what's on the ND and what's on the real life radar could be in sync, but what I'm saying is that it won't match what's in the simulator - FSX does not have the ability to tell it "put a thunderstorm from the surface to 13,000 feet with a diameter of 6 miles across right here centered on this point moving in this direction at this speed" or something like that. The way you set weather in the sim is much more general than this - you can produce "thunderstorms" in a particular area in general but there is no way to make it match detailed NEXRAD or satellite data.

[Tabs 2,790]

Didn't the Maddog 08 get around this somehow? Whenever I changed the radar tilt lower the images started to appear more and more if I aimed the dish downward towards storms and sometimes the images went away if I tilted it all the way up.

 

I've definitely seen clouds that did not have visible precipitation when flying into them show up as radar targets in that particular addon. I suspect it's working just like other FSX radars by trying to make guesses on where the precipitation is based on cloud type, temperature, dew point etc. It is 100% not possible to see where actual precipitation is in FSX because precipitation isn't a "real" thing in the sim - it's a graphical effect that exists in a cone around the airplane.

[mcbellette 145]

That's an idea we've talked about in the past but it still has issues. For one, what's in FSX is never exactly what's there in the real world - I'm sure the Opus or AS2012 or REX devs would tell you that you're not going to see individual storm cells in exactly the same arrangement they are on a real life NEXRAD image for instance - FSX isn't capable of that level of granularity, it's much more general.

 

Fair enough, however the same can be said of flight dynamics in FSX. The flight dynamics aren't giving you a feel for what you get in the real world, nor does an aircraft behave on the ground as it would in the real world. I don't see this as a factor to not introduce weather radar.

The other (arguably more important) issue with wx radar in FSX in general is that there's really no consequence for flying through weather - it's not going to rip the wings off your airplane, flame out your engines from heavy rain/hail, overwhelm your anti-ice systems etc. You can fly through the worst thunderstorm you can set up in FSX and you're basically out the other side of it in seconds with no ill effects. Until we have a sim that can actually make weather have the disastrous consequences it can have in real life, having radar is purely an academic exercise.

 

The idea of weather radar is to help you avoid weather that will "rip the wings off your airplane", isn't it? So you don't want to fly through a storm cell in FSX, as you also wouldn't want to in the real world. So in that case we don't need a sim that will have disastrous consequences for flying through a storm cell because in the real world, a B737NG pilot would go around it - as you would in FSX with the help of weather radar. Your argument (which I find flawed), Ryan, shows more reasons why we should have weather radar instead of reasons why not to have it.