Hi, Can anyone suggest why I dont have any thermals in P3D v3 ?  I have ThermalDescriptions.xml in the root folder. I have selected 'schematic' thermals in the weather settings and have confirmed that this is set in Prepar3D.cfg i.e. Thermal_visuals=2. Also in the weather setting I do not have 'Disable turbulence and thermal effects on aircraft' ticked.

I have also tried CumulusX but this doesn't seem to work in P3Dv3.

Anyone have any suggestions I could try?

Thank you,

Barry Wells

Sounds like you are doing everything correctly. You have tried the fair weather theme?

You have thermal descriptions file in the programdata folder?

CumulusX works for me in P3Dv3 been using it for a long time.

Are you getting thermals in Active Sky 16 weather injector by Hifi if you have that installed?

Rumour has it CumulusX also works in P3Dv4.

Thanks for the prompt reply.

No I do not have AS and when I tried CumulusX it kept reloading scenery in a continuous loop.

2 hours ago, Barry Wells said:

Thanks for the prompt reply.

No I do not have AS and when I tried CumulusX it kept reloading scenery in a continuous loop.

Yes that has happened to a few of us including me. It is because of UAC (user access control) issue while you are installing it. Some of the sim objects cumulus needs don't get installed into the correct location because of it. You then have to go and put them in manually:

So try this (quote from the manual p31):

Sudden jump of aircraft to different location
This occurs when the visual models of the thermal clouds were not installed correctly, e.g.
under influence of user access control (UAC). Open the distribution archive, navigate to
SimObjects\Misc“ and copy the folder „CumulusXClouds“ into the directory
„<FSXROOT>\SimObjects\Misc“.

 

Also, thermal descriptions file cannot be deleted in P3D so you have to blank out file otherwise Cumulus X thermals get mixed up with P3D's on thermals. Here is how to do it (from UKVGA site http://www.ukvga.org/forum/index.php?topic=5202.0)

So my P3D ThermalDescriptions.xml file now looks like this:


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<SimBase.Document Type="AceXML" version="1,0" id="AirObjectVisuals">
   <Descr>AceXML Document</Descr>
   <Filename>ThermalsDescriptions.XML</Filename>
   <SimMission.ThermalDescriptions>

<!-- Thermal Types -->
<!-- 00 Null thermal - For non-thermal areas -->
<!-- 01 Damp Green Areas - Medium-large diameter short slow non-tubulent -->
<!-- 02 Isolated Rock - Smallish Sharp fast turbulant high -->
<!-- 03 Large Hot Area - desert, dense urban Large rough turbulant fast and high -->
<!-- 04 Small Hot Area - dirt fields, small urban - Slightly smaller for rural area -->
<!-- 05 Grassy Areas - Wide medium strength medium turbulance and semi-low -->
<!-- 06 Cool Forests - Small to large, slow to fast, low to medium -->
<!-- 07 Warm Forests - medium to large, medium to fast, medium to high -->
<!-- 08 Semi-Arid - Wide and medium to fast and high -->
<!-- 09 Big Mountain - Fast rowdy high for mountain air -->
<!-- 10 Wetlands and Lakes - Mild Sink Large flat smooth slowly sinking air. -->

      <!-- 00 Null Thermal  -->
      <ThermalDescription id="{4f5e0000-1e81-11db-9897-001372201444}">
         <RadiusMin>0</RadiusMin>
      </ThermalDescription>


   </SimMission.ThermalDescriptions>
</SimBase.Document>

 

 

 

 

Thanks very much for your time and the help you have given me. I now have CumulusX installed and working great, complete with ridge lift and thermals. I can now try to re-live some of my Sutton Bank flights from many years ago.

Hi Folks,

Be interested in opinions - I've made a few flights in a real Ask 21 - but I've seen several threads that stated FSX/P3D didn't do a very good job with emulating soaring - so I never really tried it in earnest...

Recently watched some pretty incredible real world videos of a guy soaring the mountain ranges to the east and north of Salt Lake - amazing the distance you can cover... It's certainly tempting...

Regards,
Scott

Hi Scott,

I have logged 200+ hours flying many different types of gliders in the past and though I agree FSX/P3D does not come close to the real thing it is still a quite satisfying way of flying for me. I find the aerotow take off to be quite realistic (actually harder than the real thing imho). It is also a good way for practising landings, judging your position and height for approach. Thermaling is maybe lacking a little in realism, its seat of the pants stuff in real life. However always go for the real thing if you can.....if you can't, well give it a go.

Cheers, Baz

Hi Baz,

Thanks for your insights - maybe I'll give it a go...

Regards,
Scott

The UKVGA (UK Virtual Gliding Association)  has real world glider pilots and even the sailplane students who have used CumulusX. They have many challenging tasks that grade in difficulty and have provided real world pilots with a lot of challenges and fun over the years.

If you do things like this:

• add apps like Accufeel, TrackIR etc
• use quality glider models
• combine CumulusX with Active Sky to generate turbulence,
• Hook up real world navigation tools like XCSOAR
• then fly according to real life practice
• in sceneries that are designed around their real world equivalents,

the experience of gliding is good even for real world pilots. Gliding in VR adds even more realism yet again.

But you have to do the work setting it up because with P3D nothing happens out of the box you have to add all the layers to it.