Any intel on a potential new Active Sky (AS18) ?

[roi1862 602]

28 minutes ago, Bruce Nicholson KMFR said:

I think the next big step for activeSky is releasing a version for X-Plane. I haven't used that platform, but watching videos on YouTube reminds me of the early days in flight sim before ActiveSky was developed. The ActiveSky P3D platform is very mature at this stage.

I agree that a method for searching for historical weather in a location would be a good enhancement. The radio echoes are way overstated compared to real world echoes.

One thing I'd like to see that doesn't exist is visibility averaging between reporting stations within a certain radius. Currently AS places a visibility zone around a station. As soon as you travel outside the zone, it's clear, then  20 miles later the visibility lowers again at the next station. It seems the visibility should be consistent the entire way, just as the temperature and winds are averaged between stations. When stations are hundreds of miles apart, it's not reasonable to average over that distance, but the closer stations should be averaged.

The altitude of thunderstorm tops are limited in AS. What really kills the reality for me in all sim weather products is the repeating grid pattern of clouds. Maybe it's a limitation of the SDK, but even SkyForce has a repetitive pattern to it's clouds. Stratus exists to a grid boundary, and then there is a line along the grid boundary where it stops. ????  If a developer can get past that hurdle, it's a step toward more realistic clouds, not just by using better textures.

I am confident Damian and crew with come out with improvements and maybe something more. They have a track record of consistent improvements and surprising new developments.

As far as weather those guys really are the best so far. I am sure that we will see improvements to ASCA. 

Sky colors really need work on.

[pmb 5,137]

5 hours ago, vgbaron said:

One thing I'd like to see is the ability to search for specific historical weather in an area.

That would definitely be a great feature I would use.

Kind regards, Michael

[bbain1187 118]

I'd like to see more active thunderstorm depiction. As it is now, with a station reporting VCTS you will see a bunch of random cells surrounding the station, where in reality you may have a cell/line approaching from the west or just having moved off the field to the east. Perhaps they could use real radar data where available to depict storms and tops,! or interpolate where the storms actually are by being able to read the remarks section of the METAR which can offer greater detail about the location of storms, lightning, clouds and visibility. This advanced reading of the METAR would also enable accurate RVR simulation in some cases. 

I read they are also working on rain shafts, which would be awesome. Also, accurate storm tops (Not only thunderstorms but all convective activity, sometimes you have heavy rain/snow in the sim with tops at 4,000 feet.) They could use the REX method of basing it on LI/CAPE data. Also, realistic thunderstorm appearance based on if it is a air-mass storm, MCS, squall line or supercell. 

I would like to see more accurate turbulence depiction; instead of having random upper level turbulence based on a broad airmet, pinpoint where the CAT should be based horizontal/vertical wind shear and turning of the jet stream.

Mountain-wave turbulence simulated in the mountain-wave prone areas when the conditions are appropriate.

Accurately depicted ground fog/shallow fog.

That's just off the top of my head. Plenty of room for further innovation. 

Ben

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

Another feature that I've wanted for quite some time is for someone to develop a weather profile view of the flight plan that is zoomable. We have the top down map view available and it shows the clouds/precip/wind/visibility, but there is no way to see the clouds/precip/wind/visibility in a profile view.

Basically once you enter your flight plan, the system would generate a slice of the sky along your route and show it to you as a vertical layer. One could quickly see where the clouds are, their tops and bottoms, how the wind shifts with altitude. where turbulence and icing occur, etc.

The best visual example I could find is available from the Aerovie Electronic Flight Bag (just the bottom half of the image:

 

The same idea on limited basis (only shows winds) is already available from simbrief,com:

 

It would be great if a combination of these two projections could be produced, with an interface that allows the user to select which elements are displayed, thereby limiting clutter and only showing what the user wants to see.

The data is already available in the Activesky database and the weather engine already knows where the clouds are located and their vertical positions, why not enhance the product with an all-in-one vertical profile?