For anyone who wants to try out a real LIMC approach try EHAM and load the weather for today at this time (The 23'rd of August at 0600Z) and you will be in for a challenge :wink:

I hope they will at some point allow you to safe a flight while connected to fsgw. For me FSX locks for about 20 minutes, also when trying to change aircraft.

I hope they will at some point allow you to safe a flight while connected to fsgw. For me FSX locks for about 20 minutes, also when trying to change aircraft.

 

That doesn't sound like a general problem with FSGRW but rather something in your config because I always save my flight with FSGRW running after reaching my destination and I've never had any problems or delays doing so.

 

I suggest you ask about this in FSGRW's support forum and I'm sure they will be able to help you out!

I did a flight yesterday evening paying particular attention to wx and issues related to the package I was using - Opus with REX textures this time - and what FSX can and does provide.  The results were typical of what I see these days and for the most part very satisfying.  Some thoughts from the flight, relative to some of the recent discussions here...

 

The flight was KSBA to KGCN (Santa Barbara, CA to Grand Canyon Airport, AZ) in the turbine Duke.  Departure conditions were clear, with satellite and radar images showing lines of T-storms starting somewhere near Barstow and continuing to the destination.  What I saw on the flight generally matched what real time wx products showed with the following limitations:

 

1) The line of clouds appeared a bit later in the flight than they should have, I believe because the area where they should have started was in the middle of nowhere with no reporting stations close.  Stations to the west were correctly reporting clear conditions, while stations to the east were reporting various levels of clouds and associated wx.  Hence I had to get further east nearer those stations before I saw the expected clouds.  Note, however, that clouds didn't just pop up.  I flew into clouds that first appeared in the distance.

 

2) I should have seen some significant convective build ups in a few areas.  What I actually got was scattered to broken cumulus of modest height, with nothing truly towering.  As always, FSX bites when it comes to depicting serious convective wx from above.

 

Those are the negatives.  On the positive side:

 

1) Wx never appeared suddenly or popped.  The wx picture remained consistent and correct within the noted limits throughout, as I flew into and away from lines of storms.  In other words, it changed appropriately, not suddenly.  There were two points in the flight were I could tell I'd probably loaded updated report data, but they were not disruptive in how they handled the minor changes.

 

2) With the exception noted above, the wx matched what I saw on satellite and radar throughout the flight.

 

3) Despite my criticism about convective wx as it's depicted up high, once I descended into the cloud tops on approach to KGCN, the wx depiction was simply marvelous.  The radar showed that my path would split the heaviest wx.  What I got was a series of complex clouds and layers, bands of showers, virga, scud layers and ground hugging areas of low vis, right down to the final moments on the ILS 3 into KGCN where the approach end of the field was clear while the other end and much of the surrounding area was partially obscured.  I was bounced around nicely right down to the runway.  It was a challenging and believable enough approach to make my palms sweat.  What more could you want?

 

The bottom line was a flight that re-affirmed some of my earlier comments.  We have some very nice wx packages available which I believe give good value for the money asked, allowing believable real-world flights to occur under many conditions.  Many of the issues we've complained about in the past have been fixed or are at least mitigated when our wx apps are properly configured.  But yes, things are still not perfect.  Issues that remain - like gaps in reporting and FSX depiction of serious convective wx - are going to be tough nuts to crack.

 

Scott

Good write-up, Scott. :smile:

BTW, for those who might have wondered when I stated "The radar showed that my path would split the heaviest wx." I fly with Foreflight and FlightSimGPS which allows FSX location data to be passed to Foreflight for fully georeferenced charts with weather overlays (among many other things).  For those not familiar, Foreflight is a real-world app, so subscriptions are a bit pricey but there's a one-month free trial.  I'm approaching the end of my trial period and I'm afraid I'm hooked.

 

Scott

I have downloaded the demo of FSGRW and I must say I am quite impressed with weather depiction. I am currently using Opus and although I do like it, the weather using FSGRW feels more 'real' in some way. How does FSGRW handle S-turns with the NGX? I saw a topic on this over at the FSGRW forums, but could not find out whether the problem is really an issue or not.

 

 

feels more 'real' in some way

 

Meaning...? More like it is in the real world, so more accurate? Or does it actually FEELS more real because of turbulence etc.? Or do you mean it LOOKS more real?

I also concur; the turbulence feels very real from what i've flown so far and the wind seems lot more accurate aswell (varying direction where its coming from and varying strenght, i recall with AS2012 wind being very... stable)

 

I haven't went back to AS2012 since getting the FSGRW demo!  :lol:

I have downloaded the demo of FSGRW and I must say I am quite impressed with weather depiction. I am currently using Opus and although I do like it, the weather using FSGRW feels more 'real' in some way. How does FSGRW handle S-turns with the NGX? I saw a topic on this over at the FSGRW forums, but could not find out whether the problem is really an issue or not.

I had some issues in the past, not fully the notorious S-turns but more some wiggling left and right during the initial phase of decent. Only had this issue twice or maybe three times though and with the most current version I haven't seen any such issues and I fly a lot and I do all my flying in the NGX.

Meaning...? More like it is in the real world, so more accurate? Or does it actually FEELS more real because of turbulence etc.? Or do you mean it LOOKS more real?

I'm also a former Opus user, check post #144 in this thread.

Meaning...? More like it is in the real world, so more accurate? Or does it actually FEELS more real because of turbulence etc.? Or do you mean it LOOKS more real?

 

Well actually both. In terms of the feel, it's the wind effects (wind speeds and direction constantly changing by a few degrees/knots, like I have seen this in real world videos) and turbulence that really have an effect on the aircraft rather than the camera shaking. Also, as much as I liked Opus its camera effects when I started using them, I don't really do so anymore. Regarding the look, it is perhaps, in my opinion, the better mix of stratus and cumulus clouds. 

 

As for today's weather in the EHRD area though, weather depiction is a bit off for both Opus and FSGRW, but that seems to be due to the METAR. 

 

METAR EHRD 241525Z AUTO 17008KT 130V200 9999 -DZ FEW011 SCT030 19/17

Q1010 REDZ NOSIG=

 

As the METAR shows that there's only a few at FL011 and scattered clouds at FL030 whilst visibility is greater than 10km, both weather engines show blue skies with some clouds (and some rain earlier today). However, skies have been completely grey here today and I have not seen single spot of blue sky all day. Perhaps this is due to vertical visiblity which cannot be extracted from the METAR or something? Would be nice if there was some way of still depicting this weather correctly.. Especially since this weather is kind of typical for the Netherlands where I do most of my flying.

 

I had some issues in the past, not fully the notorious S-turns but more some wiggling left and right during the initial phase of decent. Only had this issue twice or maybe three times though and with the most current version I haven't seen any such issues and I fly a lot and I do all my flying in the NGX.

 

Thanks for the info, sounds good. I am still in doubt whether I should buy yet another weather engine.. Although I must say that I also like the simplicity of FSGRW's UI and the historical weather option with like one or two months of previous data still available.

 

 

but FSX is simply not capable of doing it, because weather stations in FSX can either have clouds or they don't - there's nothing in between.

 

So armed with this information, it is impossible to do a real world weather front?  The best you can do is utilize a limited number of weather stations in such a way as to "fake" a weather front (providing those weather stations are situated in such a manner as to facilitate) and it can't be dynamic.

 

If this is actually the case (I do believe you), then no weather engine will actually work accurately in FSX.  Again, armed with this info, it would seem to me that accuracy is impossible.  Since accuracy is impossible, then all the more important to smooth (aka fake a result so as to not show drastic and unrealistic changes).  But NONE of these weather engines do this.  I realize with limited weather stations there is going to be a resolution/accuracy issue, but again, that makes it all the more important to smooth the limited data to keep a consistent weather pattern even if not 100% accurate.

 

I'll give up the dream of emulating SF/Bay Area weather, but not the dream of a smoother weather experience.  I think this is doable if the end user is given more control over the smoothing process.  Even if the smoothing happens on the server side because of volumes of weather data, that processing can have parameters and those parameters can be sent from the client to the server stored and that process can then use those parameters to determine the weather data for FSX (heck even store multiple parameters sets per client/user - can't be that much parameter data).  Weather engine determines the client, looks up the parameters for the client, applies those to it's weather engine or engines.

 

But again, given that accuracy is impossible because there just aren't enough weather stations in FSX, accuracy should NOT be the goal, smoothing should be the goal.  I can't imagine someone being ok with clouds 1 min and then no clouds the next minute, then clouds again next minute, then no haze, then haze all within a span of a 5 min approach to an airport?  I know I'm not and I don't think I'm alone in my desire for good weather smoothing at the cost of accuracy.

So armed with this information, it is impossible to do a real world weather front?  The best you can do is utilize a limited number of weather stations in such a way as to "fake" a weather front (providing those weather stations are situated in such a manner as to facilitate) and it can't be dynamic.

 

If this is actually the case (I do believe you), then no weather engine will actually work accurately in FSX.  Again, armed with this info, it would seem to me that accuracy is impossible.  Since accuracy is impossible, then all the more important to smooth (aka fake a result so as to not show drastic and unrealistic changes).  But NONE of these weather engines do this.  I realize with limited weather stations there is going to be a resolution/accuracy issue, but again, that makes it all the more important to smooth the limited data to keep a consistent weather pattern even if not 100% accurate.

 

I'll give up the dream of emulating SF/Bay Area weather, but not the dream of a smoother weather experience.  I think this is doable if the end user is given more control over the smoothing process.  Even if the smoothing happens on the server side because of volumes of weather data, that processing can have parameters and those parameters can be sent from the client to the server stored and that process can then use those parameters to determine the weather data for FSX (heck even store multiple parameters sets per client/user - can't be that much parameter data).  Weather engine determines the client, looks up the parameters for the client, applies those to it's weather engine or engines.

 

But again, given that accuracy is impossible because there just aren't enough weather stations in FSX, accuracy should NOT be the goal, smoothing should be the goal.  I can't imagine someone being ok with clouds 1 min and then no clouds the next minute, then clouds again next minute, then no haze, then haze all within a span of a 5 min approach to an airport?  I know I'm not and I don't think I'm alone in my desire for good weather smoothing at the cost of accuracy.

 

I think you have to distinguish between two ways of "accuracy". First, let me explain what the real problem with dynamic weather in FSX is. Whenever you update the weather in FSX, you see cloud formations change instantly - there's no way to make a weather change by smoothly changing one cloud formation into a different one. FSX only allows weather to be set and displays it immediately. So yes, to see a smooth transition of weather is impossible with FSX. You can come close to this by choosing global mode, which doesn't use weather stations and sets the same weather everywhere (i.e. you don't see CBs in the distance etc). Global mode was never an option for us with FSGRW, because in our opinion it's absolutely necessary to see CBs and weather formations in the distance for a realistic flight.

 

However, that doesn't mean that the weather can't be accurate. We have created a lot of additional weather stations (especially over the oceans and in other areas where FSXs default weather stations are too far away from each other to create a realistic result). Our weather servers do a very good job in creating an accurate snap-shot of real world weather at a given time. That's one part of accuracy.

 

What's not possible with FSX is that you have dynamic, smooth weather changes at a specific weather station, as I've explained before. That's why FSGRW has a different approach: our weather servers create a realistic snap-shot of the real world weather at a given time. When you transfer weather to the simulator, all stations around the aircraft (the radius can be defined in the options) will get weather from the most current snap-shot available. As your flight progresses, every few nautical miles all stations that lie in the direction you fly to (that means: all additional stations that then lie within the radius) will be updated with the newest snap-shot available and so on. This leads to a very smooth experience (because you never see cloud formations suddenly change, if you set the radius high enough) and you will smoothly fly into the new weather which was fed with more recent weather than then one you took off from.

 

In other words: if you see a weather front in the distance, you will have smooth changes when flying in that direction, because weather stations behind the front will be updated with more recent weather from our servers and therefore reflect real-world changes. However, as I said, these dynamic changes are not possible at a single weather station (because that would lead to sudden cloud formation changes, which we want to prevent because they're not realistic: if you fly through cumulus clouds and suddenly the clouds change to CBs, you'll be in big troubles if you're suddenly in the middle if a turbulent CB!). That's why these local weather changes can't be simulated in FSX. You can't position your aircraft at KSFO and have the weather to slowly change over time without having sudden weather changes.

 

We're constantly improving our weather servers and our local effects engine would allow for a SFO-Bay like local weather effect, but as I said, this would only make it possible to simulate a current weather situation realistically, not a smooth dynamic change at a single station.

 

Opus has a different approach: it uses weather themes to set the weather. They don't use weather stations to display cloud formations. However, weather themes have the disadvantage, that they only have 30 x 30 km tiles; so if you are in KJFK, then KLGA has the exact same weather (wind, visibility, clouds etc), because it's only   ~17 km away from KJFK. So if you make a short trip from KJFK to KLGA, Opus will have to update the weather at your location will will result in sudden cloud changes (depending on how different the weather between JFK and LGA is - from my research there can be big differences between these two stations sometimes). You can check that by positioning your aircraft at JFK, injecting weather with Opus and then check the weather in the weather menu of FSX - you'll see that LGA has the same weather, even though METAR says something different! Regarding your "smooth" and "accurate" weather change question: weather themes won't help you either, because FSX can't smoothly change from one weather theme into another: you inject it, and it's there.

 

Hope that helps, if you have additional questions, feel free to ask.

 

Bernd

How is FSGRW handling cirrus? I turned cirrus off in OpusFSX because it suddenly appeared or disappeared depending on my position. (Whenever I fly out of ENBR the cirrus always pops up when I cross a certain mountain: odd and annoying. Does FSGRW also have popping up cirrus...?

 

BTW Nice info Bernd about how the weather is being updated:  clever solution.