FSX-MS Worth upgrading to Active Sky Next?

[Sandy_Bridge 11]

Hello,

 

For over 2 years now I have been using Active Sky 2012 as my weather engine, and it has served me well since I bought it. However, in the last few weeks I have been considering upgrading to Active Sky Next. However, it seems that the only signficant changes so far are the Weather Radar API and continued support (AS2012 will no longer be update IIRC). My question is, are there any big features of ASN that I'm not aware of? Have you upgraded to Next from 2012 and why? Is it worth the 23 euros?

 

Thanks.

[spesimen 135]

it has been many years since i switched, so my recollection is foggy, but i think one of the other major feature differences is that ASN detects when you enter and exit clouds and reduces visibility during that time, which really adds to the immersion in overcast or thick cumulus structures. i believe the wind shear and microburst stuff is also new. 

 

cheers

-andy crosby

[mjrhealth 820]

Yes because a lot of weather radars have being developed to work with it,

[jcomm 5,928]

And many weather effects too, including the new way mountainous terrain affects winds and up / down currents and turbulence, the way turbulence ( various types ) is modeled associated with convective cloud types, the way the sky is filled with the right type and extension of clouds around your aircraft, etc...

[qqwertz 781]

I really liked AS2012, but ASN is much better. On my first flight with ASN I crashed because I hadn't looked at the local weather enroute (never had to with AS2012) and got into a small snow storm.

 

In addition to what the others wrote, ASN properly fixes the "winds aloft" problem in FSX. This is a sudden, unrealistic change of wind (like from 100Kts headwind to 80Kts tail wind) that can ruin your flights (suddenly you are way over the structural speed limits of your plane) and is a consequence of wrongly combining the wind data from distant weather stations in FSX.

 

AS2012 fixed that problem (for the first time, I think), by setting the weather globally to the weather near your airplane. This works, but you can't get reliable Metar data for your destination until you are sufficiently close. In ASN, the winds aloft problem is gone.

 

Peter