I cannot seem to get my OpusFSX to load the conditions at my destination airport before FS ATC gives me vectors to land. The FS ATC just assignes me a runway based on the weather that I had on the surface at my departing airport. I have set my destination in the weather download section and made my forced recovery altitude to 25,000ft. Is there anything else I can do or is this just an FSX limitation?

What was your cruise altitude and recovery altitude set at. Surface wind recovery is enabled only after you climb above the RA + 500 feet. Recovery will be attempted after you then descend below RA with forced recovery occurring after you descend through the specified altitude.

 

Stephen

My cruise was set in the weather download option as FL370 and I did cruise at that altitude. Once again my recovery and forced recovery altitude are set at 25000.

I also noticed that my destination weather is fully set at about 4 miles to land, visibility could go from 10km to the metar's 1500m when i am about 5-4 miles in the ils. Is it possible to set a wider radius and ceiling for arrival like 30 miles and 10000ft so the conditions don't drastically change on final approach.

If that's with the current beta then it should be ok, I will check the handling of the RA and forced RA when they are the same. If its an older version I assume you set 37000 for the cruise. If you had Automatic Settings enabled then the RA would have been overridden.

 

With your destination set the LWE would give priority to the destination METAR (if one exists) between 10 and 20 miles in each direction. Beyond that zone all METARs will be treated with equal weighting. Your destination weather should have been updated long before your arrival, similarly, unless the weather updates were disabled, the recovery of the surface conditions should have occurred long before your arrival. In your case it certainly looks like the destination vis did not extend much beyond the priority zone.

 

Stephen

The METAR is correct when I arrive I just wish there was a way to have it communicate it with FS so that FSATC will assign runways and approaches based conditions there at that airport and not on the conditions at my aircraft. It seems with default FSX weather I did not have this problem (however the weather was nowhere near as accurate as OpusFSX). I am having UT2 aircraft landing or taking off coming towards me while I land on the correct runway despite FS ATC's instructions.

Make sure you have recovered the winds before you contact ATC, otherwise it is possible static winds will be used. If static winds are in force this will be indicated in the weather report window.

 

Oh ok thanks for that tip; that makes sense. But will that make the AI traffic land the correct way? Still seems like there will be some landing and takeing off the same way as me and some going off of static weather and landing and taking off opposite.

I agree, I don't think it will guarantee all AI traffic landing the correct way due to flights being queued but you will have to see how it goes.

 

Regards

Cheryl

Are you using any other package that generates flights or are we just talking about FSX?

 

Stephen

The AI traffic I am using is Ultimate Traffic 2. I figure that unless there is a way to have the LWE communicate to FSX the conditions at an airport about 75NM out, there will be some AI flights landing the wrong way.

Hello!

 

I had a similar case yesterday. I'm using VoxATC (or Radar Contact) with FSX AI traffic (Traffic 360 visual models).

 

VoxATC/Radar Contact works in a similar way to the one Mitchell mentioned:

 

ATC assigns me the same runway that the AI is using. The decision is made, when I'm 50-80nm away from the airport. The sequence of event goes something like this, when flying lower airways (below FL240):

 

1) Runway in use is selected based on destination weather when ~70nm from touchdown

 

2) When ~50nm from the airport, ATC requests me to start a descent

 

3) I pass Opus recovery altitude ~40nm from the airport (cruise FL190, Recovery automatically set to 17000)

 

4) Surface wind are recovered?

 

5) ATC vectors my to the runway selected in step #1

 

6) Landing is made with a tailwind component

 

It was a late night flight, but this is what I think happened.

You could set your recovery at 29,000 and the forced recovery at 25,000. Don't use the automatic settings since it will adjust these figures.

I can't remember if the automatic settings was checked last time I flew or not. I have now made sure it is unchecked and have set my recovery from 25,000 to 29,000 and my forced recovery to remain at 25,000. I will report on the results after my next flight.

What happens if we do not set a destination? How many updates would we get in the descent/approach phase? Alternatively, what if we updated the weather let's say 100nm out and then disabled updates for the remainder of the flight? What if we did that with a destination and without? What would the destination weather be? Maybe it wouldn't be dead on to the METAR that was reported 5 minutes ago, but would it be weather that is expected at the destination(i.e. not the weather at my current location/altitude)?

 

I'm still trying to find the right settings that will give the fewest updates. Especially on departure and most definitely on approach/arrival. I think in some ways, with the earlier versions of Opus before we could set the destination and before winds/temps aloft, there were less updates and a lot better feeling of flying into the weather(less "popping"). Now, we're getting updates when climbing/descending, updates when a timer expires and/or a distance is flown, and then updates based on how close we are to some destination.

 

It's been sort a debate in my own mind on whether to switch back to the simpler earlier versions where I could really get that great feel of flying into weather in the distance where when I am on descent or approach and am flying towards a cloud, I knew it wasn't going to "jump" 100 feet to the right because the weather got updated. The weather generated by Opus is still just amazing and I love it. I've never had so many amazing IFR flights before. Just want to minimize the updates.