fsx-ms Roland´s Radar X WX Advantage Radar

[KenG 492]

With the information above I decided to fly ASN and WX Advantage against a well developed storm moving across Oklahoma on 14 July. 

 

Let me describe what you are seeing. On the left fltplan Go on my iPad using datalinked weather and synced to the location of FSX. In the center is ASN depiction of the weather and the right is WX Advantage. Each time I show WX Advantage I have already tilted up and down to analyze the return.

 

 

 

In this first image we are just starting to approach the line of storms and we can see that on ASN. WX Advantage is already showing hazardous returns at 25 to 35nm. With ASN range at 68 I assume that is 68nm from the left of the window to the right, so it seems like with are starting to pick up the lead of the storm.

 

 

Using WX Advantage I head for the clear area North of my filed route. I fulled expected to be turned around by this storm and based on the datalinked weather this would have been a no go. But I decided to see how close ASN weather is. 

 

 

 

This last image shows the gaping hole in ASN weather presentation. According to the datalinked weather, I should in in the thick of a very powerful storm. I was wondering if this was a lag in ASN weather. The datalink was just after a refresh. Even considering that while there is some matching of the storm, the ASN weather still looked different in many aspects. I guess either a lag or the METAR from KTQH was messing with the presentation.

 

What about WX Advantage. You can just see some radar shadowing of the storm at 11 O'clock and 40nm (which after the fact I think I should have had the range of ASN further out and we would be able to see that cell.) Other then that it is generally painting cells in the same vicinity as where ASN put them. You also have to consider the color difference between NEXRAD and Airborne weather. 

 

 

Basically, Dark green on NEXRAD is about the start of the moderate band on Airborne and medium yellow on NEXRAD is strong on airborne. Also when the radome gets wet, the colors shift (yellow is actually green, and red may be yellow or red!) My dome was dry at this point.

 

One more shot this one is sans the datalink image since we already determined that my datalink was newer then ASN. Now ATC is vectoring me south for the approach. I would have gone west of the field with the info I had on board, but ATC was determined to send me east and into the thick of it. 

 

 

Again the range on the ASN window is still unknown (25nm but from where to where.) There was large precipitation between 30 to 60 degrees left of the aircraft at about 8nm. To the right there are cells off the nose slightly past 60 degrees. I don't expect the cells to match up perfectly. I also turned on the turbulence mode of WX Advantage. I can sort of match up precipitation with ASN and I am topping the closest cells with the radar beam.

 

Bottom line: ASN is delayed weather, I'd guess about 30 to 45 minutes based on what I saw. Either that or the one METAR report was causing the large hole that was not really present. But, overall there was a large storm generally east of Tulsa today.

 

WX Advantage was able to steer me clear, you have to look at the chart above to compare NEXRAD and airborne sensitivity, only the darkest blue will register as green. The narrow beam will easily top cells. The beam was more powerful then expected, but it is also a BIG dish. I did see some shadowing, but it was not well defined. Sometimes WX Advantage would shadow in the middle of a storm then paint the back side.  The primary purpose of a weather radar is storm avoidance, not penetration. I am fairly certain I could have avoided the storms using WX Advantage with ASN today and should have told ATC "Unable" when they vectored me into the weather.

[timest 472]

Great report Ken! Thank you for taking the time.

[KenG 492]

yes couple of typos and I do know how to spell precipitation as opposed to participation.  :wink:

[timest 472]

yes couple of typos and I do know how to spell precipitation as opposed to participation.  :wink:

 

Hah!

[kdfw__ 542]

if one uses Roland's ASN wx gauge in the vc, you can see and set the range scale.  

 

from my experience, the gauge shows precip ahead and fly into it, you'll see precip outside.  

 

[KenG 492]

Thank you, I specifically did not test Roland's Radar to WX Advantage on purpose. I don't think it is a fair comparison. One is pulling from ASN directly (and free so the price is right) while the other is trying to simulate a beam to detect the precipitation. (spelled it right this time!) Both can be used to avoid the weather and I think it is just a matter of taste as for what one chooses to use (or economics.) Like the difference between FSX and P3D or Xplane I think we could continue to have an academic discussion on the "advantages" or "disadvantages" of each, but in the end it does not matter. Both are fully capable. Of course my opinion and 8 bucks and you can get a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  :smile:

 

I was remiss and I would like to tank Roland for making his gauge and providing it to the community. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

The main advantage of Roland's gauge is that it is readily adaptable to the VC of a wide variety of 3rd party aircraft.

 

A 2D popup gauge is certainly better than no gauge at all, but in my opinion this approach cuts down on realism.

[FelipeAbdo 0]

Funny that the blue font shown on my radar gauge is NOT the expected one. This one looks like the LCD font. Did you hack your system font

 

Hi all and thanks for your attention.

 

Roland i did not anything about the fonts , strange! :-)

 

KenG , great test! Thanks...

 

Bui I'm a little confused yet , I need my radar show me where the rain is,  then if the Roland Radar takes this direct information from ASN , theoretically it is more accurate than the WXA.

 

Compare my SS, I have a heavy rain at  12 o clock  conferring with the ASN and Roland Radar but does not appear in WXA ( same range and same tilt in both radars )

 

We will keep testing and sharing here.

 

Best regards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Milviz 919]

The main advantage of Roland's gauge is that it is readily adaptable to the VC of a wide variety of 3rd party aircraft.

 

A 2D popup gauge is certainly better than no gauge at all, but in my opinion this approach cuts down on realism.

 

 

The WX Avantage can (easily) do exactly the same thing though, as with the other one, it's a 2D representation on the 3D VC and not actually integrated.  Plus, we're in discussions with 3rd party devs to have them integrate it into their products.

[n4gix 4,947]

yes couple of typos and I do know how to spell precipitation as opposed to participation.  :wink:

I fixed that for you... :wink:

[KenG 492]

 

Hi all and thanks for your attention.

 

Roland i did not anything about the fonts , strange! :-)

 

KenG , great test! Thanks...

 

Bui I'm a little confused yet , I need my radar show me where the rain is,  then if the Roland Radar takes this direct information from ASN , theoretically it is more accurate than the WXA.

 

Compare my SS, I have a heavy rain at  12 o clock  conferring with the ASN and Roland Radar but does not appear in WXA ( same range and same tilt in both radars )

 

We will keep testing and sharing here.

 

Best regards

 

Think of it this way.

 

 Place an small object (like a football) on the floor a few feet in front of you. You can see it right. That is Roland's radar with the API interface. 

 

 Now close one eye and look through a paper towel roll, but make sure the roll is horizontal. That is WX Advantage and it represents a very narrow radar beam looking forward. To see your object through the paper towel roll you have to tilt the roll down until the object is in view. Like wise you have to tilt your radar dish down. Now kick the football so it is 10 to 15 feet in front of you. You have to tilt the roll down less to see it. The football never changed size, but because of your height and the relative location of the football, you could not see the foot ball through the paper towel roll. The same thing happens with an airborne weather radar. If you have the tilt too high to see the storm, it slides under the nose of the aircraft. 

 

 I agree lots more testing is needed and I think there are some limitations to either ASN or even FS. Mostly with very large thunderstorms fail to represent as large columns filled with precipitation. (Thank you for fixing those above Bill!) One of the things I noticed is ASN will report base reflectivity and echo tops where as my datalink is composite reflectivity with satellite coverage. If precipitation only exists off the base of a cloud in FS then that could be a problem for a Weather Radar looking for echos in other then the base of the cloud. Maybe this has all been discussed somewhere else but now with these "new radars" interest has resurged in accurate weather or how accurate is the weather...  

I fixed that for you... :wink:

 Thank you... 

[kterz 49]

Hi Ken,

 

you obviously have misunderstood how ASN/AS16 api works and it seems that your knowledge of the exact way ASN/AS16 works is limited, so you run into false assumptions when you talk about "ASN limitations". You shouldn't directly compare it with the NexRad image we show on our XGauge and main map. Roland's gauge, our own new gauge in AS16 (in airborne mode), the PMDG, Majestic Q400, FlightSimLabs A320 etc NDs all use our api which also simulates a narrow beam of radar and measures the aggregate precipitation intensity intersected by the beam. This accurately matches the level of the precipitation intensity (and type) you'll get as we directly control it based on the radar signals. If your tilt is wrong, then you have a danger of overflying an anvil top at cruise altitude and run into bow wave turbulence. We've even taken into account details like the reduced radar signal strength of ice crystals (in hail or at the top of a cell)

 

The main difference with Active sky (and the radar implementations that are based on it) is that what you get in the radar actually matches exactly with the hazard your are about to encounter when you get into the "reds". This includes hail (if there), severe turbulence and updrafts/downdrafts. In the case of AS16 we actually made this so that if you try to fly a small aircraft inside the "reds", the wind shear will be so severe, that you'll definitely lose control. 

 

The proper modelling of a "system" in our flight simulation world means that a specific technology that a real aircraft has is modeled so that if the system does not work, it has certain consequences. In our case the "system" is the wxr radar/pilot/weather avoidance as a whole. If the weather avoidance procedure is not followed and you fly into the "reds" and nothing happens, then the system is not modeled correctly. Similarly the predictive wind shear (pws) functionality which by the way is part of the wx radar technology of at least airliners, if not coupled with a windshear/microburst effect, is just an eye candy icon on your ND/gauge.

 

So, given the default fsx/p3d weather limitations (for proper simulation of hazards), I really don't understand the argument that a weather radar can work with "all weather engines". The weather radar and the weather engine are things that need to go together. We could easily create a gauge as a separate commercial addon more than 2 years ago when we first introduced this technology and earn more money this way. But this would not be a complete and correct "system" and in addition it would be too restrictive and wouldn't let us improve the whole technology as we move forward. On the other hand, there are obviously different views in the community on what's important to our simulator experience and on the definition of immersion and that's something I do respect.

[Milviz 919]

Actually, what you've said above is extremely facile... Think about it.... The WXA (Advantage) uses what it SEES in FSX/P3D in terms of weather generated without ANY regard to what's actually making the weather. It doesn't care. What does that mean? It means that we can see and forewarn in ANY conditions as a WXR is supposed to do and we do it, again, in all WX engines. We're not before the WX... we're AFTER it's been generated. As well, if the WX engine can cause the situations you imply, then they would still happen, no matter what WX engine is being used... We don't change the weather (we do put the precip where it's supposed to go except in the case of ASN), we're just showing where it is.

 

As well, I have my doubts as to weather (PUN!) or not you could make a WXR that worked in all WX engines... it took us a huge amount of effort and time (not to mention money) to do so and I am SURE that if you could have, you would have. It would make no sense to not make money just because you're "stuck" in ASN's WX engine...

[KenG 492]

Kostas,

 

 I appreciate your response, but you still left me with questions.

 

What is the beam width in degrees that ASN outputs to Roland's Radar and or others if it is a variable. (Although I saw nothing in your API documentation that sets beam width.) That would be more helpful when looking at various "types" of radars.

 

I am also confused why you would not want me to use your NexRAD output when comparing to a display. I would think your internal NexRAD would be the more accurate display of what is really happening. Your documentation also leads me to believe this is so. Also where are the distances measured from. When I set the range in your software where does it determine that range if from / to. 

 

Thank you,

 

 

 

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

As an aside, regarding NexRAD:

 

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2012/june/25/ntsb-warns-of-in-cockpit-weather-delays

 

Further delays may be introduced by detailed 3rd party processing.