It's that I'm flying X-Plane in a virtual airline (FSEconomy) where it takes more time sitting at my computer to finish an assignment when there is a strong headwind like that.

 

Where is the point in playing FSEconomy and then manipulating the weather to make the assignments easier? You can't turn down winds with a scrollwheel in the real world, right? But anyways. I guess if you need to be able to manipulate the weather than you have to wait for later versions.

Yes, the flight sim is doing exactly the right thing under those conditions, it's increasing the travel time. My complaint isn't about the flight model.

 

It's that I'm flying X-Plane in a virtual airline (FSEconomy) where it takes more time sitting at my computer to finish an assignment when there is a strong headwind like that. Not only time, but I pay for virtual fuel in the game with virtual dollars. It costs a lot more in fuel to fight a 40 kt headwind in a light plane for 300 miles than it does with no headwinds. Carrying more fuel also means reducing payload in passengers or cargo in FSE, so it's a financial hit both ways: more fuel cost, less money-making cargo for virtual income in the game. 

 

I could be a total realism nut and just fly under those conditions anyway (if I could get the plane off the ground in those winds). But that would mean choosing fewer assignments with routes to interesting places, or just moving to sunnier climes. And that's not what i want to do. So I reduce the winds using default X-Plane settings or SkyMaxx Pro/RWC. I can't do that in XEnviro.

 

Turn around and go the other way and you'll sure get a nice tailwind boost though ha.

Where is the point in playing FSEconomy and then manipulating the weather to make the assignments easier? You can't turn down winds with a scrollwheel in the real world, right? But anyways. I guess if you need to be able to manipulate the weather than you have to wait for later versions.

 

FSEconomy is flexible enough to allow different approaches for enjoying the game. I use it as a way to help motivate me to fly in the sim for an hour or two, and because it sends me to interesting places that I wouldn't find otherwise. I like the challenge of creating a flight plan and then having to find some tiny airstrip buried in a mountain valley. I don't find it particularly challenging, interesting, or fun, to turn a 2 hour flight into a 3 hour flight just because the winds are blowing that hard.

 

Because I reduce winds by habit on every FSE flight, I don't get the advantage going the other direction either. :smile:

 

There is a zone where I can enjoy my flight simming time in X-Plane, and it just doesn't involve dealing with the crazy winds we have up here for part of the year when flying light GA and helicopters. Your mileage may vary, etc.

I think a few pages back or maybe another thread someone suggested using a lua script to manually set a cutoff on wind speed, as a pseudo manual weather adjustment.. did anyone test this and find out if it works?

@fl340 clouds look to bright, even w the cloud brightness down to min. this is in xp10.51. will try xp11 to see if its the same. 

Here's the LUA script to limit wind speed. Can anyone using xEnviro check if it works? You should go to an airport where the metar reports winds higher than 15 knots.

 

The dataref to look at in the sim is: "sim/weather/wind_speed_kt". It's in m/s, so it should read not more than 7,72 (=15 kts).
 

MaxWind = 15.0

DataRef("wind0", "sim/weather/wind_speed_kt[0]", "writable")
DataRef("wind1", "sim/weather/wind_speed_kt[1]", "writable")
DataRef("wind2", "sim/weather/wind_speed_kt[2]", "writable")

function set_winds()

    if wind0>MaxWind then set( "sim/weather/wind_speed_kt[0]",MaxWind) end
    if wind1>MaxWind then set( "sim/weather/wind_speed_kt[1]",MaxWind) end
    if wind2>MaxWind then set( "sim/weather/wind_speed_kt[2]",MaxWind) end

    return

end

do_sometimes("set_winds()")

 

 

My biggest gripe, and I knew what I was getting myself in for, is the fact that it uses real weather all the time. My first flight I was blown off the runway, and I tried several other European airports and the conditions were just terrible. I ended up having to load up somewhere in Australia to get some summer weather.

 

Yes, I can strongly sympathise with this. There are times when I really want to fly a particular airport, and even if the weather is clear enough the winds make it impossible to get a Cessna off the ground safely so I have to find an alternative.

 

Having said that it is forcing me to explore areas that I don't usually spend much time (like Australia) which fit the permanently-summer textures better anyway.

 

But they do need to let us set our own weather at some point...

FSEconomy is flexible enough to allow different approaches for enjoying the game. I use it as a way to help motivate me to fly in the sim for an hour or two, and because it sends me to interesting places that I wouldn't find otherwise. I like the challenge of creating a flight plan and then having to find some tiny airstrip buried in a mountain valley. I don't find it particularly challenging, interesting, or fun, to turn a 2 hour flight into a 3 hour flight just because the winds are blowing that hard.

 

Because I reduce winds by habit on every FSE flight, I don't get the advantage going the other direction either. :smile:

 

There is a zone where I can enjoy my flight simming time in X-Plane, and it just doesn't involve dealing with the crazy winds we have up here for part of the year when flying light GA and helicopters. Your mileage may vary, etc.

I see your point, quite logic attitude, a good compromise. Sometimes I'll have to reactivate my FSE account, if only XP was a flight sim for me and not, like recently, a design sim 

I'm using XP11 quite a bit with FSE now.  I like that XEnviro forces me to choose locations based on the weather rather than adjusting the weather to suit my flying.  It's taking me to new places....  You do have to do your homework though. Today, I flew in southern California without checking the weather, expecting it to be great.  Wrong.  Rain and low visibility lol.

Yeah, winter is the rainy season in Southern California. Try Florida instead they should be in their dry season.

I'm using XP11 quite a bit with FSE now.  I like that XEnviro forces me to choose locations based on the weather rather than adjusting the weather to suit my flying.  It's taking me to new places....  You do have to do your homework though. Today, I flew in southern California without checking the weather, expecting it to be great.  Wrong.  Rain and low visibility lol.

 

I'm with you on that one. It forces me to take weather into consideration that I often ended up disabling before. Questions like "Is this still the most profitable option considering this or that weather situation" or similar. I'm quite enjoying it, but I can definitely see the need for an option to set manual weather.

 

Maybe those looking for more moderate winds could request a wind setting to be part of the settings involved in the "easy" mode of it, i.e. limit wind to certain maximums, similar to Murmur's script. I think it might be worth suggesting to the xEnviro team.

I'm using XP11 quite a bit with FSE now.  I like that XEnviro forces me to choose locations based on the weather rather than adjusting the weather to suit my flying.  It's taking me to new places....  You do have to do your homework though. Today, I flew in southern California without checking the weather, expecting it to be great.  Wrong.  Rain and low visibility lol.

 

That's fine if you're renting planes in FSE. It doesn't work when you own planes in the game, which pins them down to specific parts of the world where you like to fly.

 

My two purchased FSE aircraft are based in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Europe/UK, respectively. I can't just take a jaunt down to Spain or Mexico when I feel like it, unless I want to rent instead of fly my own planes in the game. Which I do occasionally for scenery reasons, but I won't do it for weather, as long as I can control the winds.

I am pleased with SMP, but an starting to like this also, but the only thing I don't care about is the live weather.

 

If I want to fly anywhere at anytime I am going to, or else I would not have a sim, period.

 

If they fix that to where you can choose your own weather I will most likely get it.

 

But in no hurry right now, finances are tighter than I'd like.

I am seeing lights through the clouds with xenviro, which is unrealistic. Anyone else seeing this or has a remedy?

I am seeing lights through the clouds with xenviro, which is unrealistic. Anyone else seeing this or has a remedy?

This is a problem with XP11. They will address the problem when XP11 is released. In XP10 you don't see lights through the clouds.