Hey guys,

 

I've been a long time user of ASE but recently purchased and moved over to Opus due to its ability to depict zero vis conditions.

 

I usually fly high altitude and long haul so Active Sky has always been the better option in terms winds aloft and planning, but Opus won hands down with its zero vis condtions on approach.

 

I'd like to move up to AS2012 and was wondering how to compares to Opus for that zero vis depiction?

 

Cheers,

It is actually quite good.  I don't have Opus to compare but when I have tested it after searching for very low vis airports, there was a very accurate depiction.

Hi Mark,

 

With AS2012 do you get the visibility to reduce well outside the terminal area as you descend though the flightlevels? For me even if the airport has 1/2mile visibility, the visibility only starts going down when I'm 7 or 8 miles from touchdown (and rapidly reduces within the next few miles to 1/2 mile vis at touchdown).

 

No doubt it's my AS2012 settings and I don't get a lot of time to fly & experiment these days but when I saw your post it sounded like you had achieved it somehow. If so, would you mind sharing the settings you're running?

 

Thanks,

Subin.

Thanks for the feedback Mark. I prsume that AS2012 will (when appropriate) accurately display zero vis as you descent. I think thats what Subin is getting at as well. I know with ASE I got fleeting moments of zero as a descended through a cloud but it was only that - fleeting.

 

Opus does a great job of giving zero vis for 2000 feet if there is a 2000 foot cloud layer. Thats what I'd want from AS2012. Note - I'm not trying to have a go at either product - Just want to know if AS2012 does this. Cheers all -

I will have to go back and try it again and report back.  I think this is the case but I want to be sure.

Just did a test flight at an airport where the metar showed 2nm visibility and ceiling of 200ft in -DZ.  Depiction was good on the ground and in the climb, I could not see the ground at all, climbed out about 10 miles to 6000ft then turned around and descended back to the runway.  Did not see the ground until about 2000ft and only for a very short time until I was back in the soup (but at that point I was actually off course so could have been another metar affecting things).  When I redirected to the airport I lost vis until about 500ft and that was again a mile or two from the filed.  At the field, I could only see the ground below 400ft. 

 

So all in all, not quite perfect, but close.  I have no idea if Opus would have similar results in the same area of FSX at the same time.

I get zero vis down to whatever the base is as per metar in As2012. Just make sure you move Cloud Density to 12 in your fsx.cfg file and you are set. I have done a few flights with reported 500m vis and that is exactly what I got. The new SP2 for As2012 is truly a massive step forward for this weather engine.

Excellent. I just purchased it and so far so good!

 

 

The new SP2 for As2012 is truly a massive step forward for this weather engine.

 

+1

 

Flew into St. John's, Newfoundland (CYYT) the other day with visibility 1/8SM and OVC002. AS2012 depicted the descent to the field perfectly. I was in the soup from about 8000 ft. all the way to just before touchdown. Even though I was on the ILS it was definitely a sweaty palms landing.

 

AS2012 is by far the addon that contributes most to the immersion factor for me in FSX.

 

 

Ok will have to check my cfg. What is the impact on frame rates of that setting?

Lose about 2 or 3 fps in heavy overcast. It is really hard to say. Depends in how many cloud layers you have enabled in AS2012 and also what type of clouds your system is depicting.

 

But for AS2012 to show you an overcast to give you sweaty palms ( or a missed approach), change density to a value of 12. You'll have fun!