Hello Everybody,recently I have noticed something rather strange within Flight Sim and was wondering if maybe someone here knows what the deal is. The other day I was flying a UAL flight from YSSY - KSFO. So I logged onto the UAL website, jottted down the times, Depart 14:40 YSSY time, and arrive 10:57 KSFO time. So off to FS I went, programmed the FMC, and was underway. 13 hours later, I was ready to start my descent into SFO, but it was still dark out with no signs of light. Indeed, I was just off the coast of SFO and it was only like 2am! I thought I must have set my departure time wrong in YSSY and thought no more of it, until today when I tried a RJAA - KORD flight. This time I was extra sure to load the plane at the accurate time of 16:55 LOCAL NRT time. took off, reached cruise altitude and speed, checked the FMC planned arrival time...looked good @ 20:00 Zulu time. Came back a few hours later, the planned arrival time dropped back to 08:00 Zulu...the middle of the night @ ORD! The plane is SUPPOSED to arrive at 14:30 Local, now it's arriving at like 3:00 in the morning. I started thinking that maybe this has something to do with the international date line or something...any ideas??? Thanks,Darren

There are known issues with time zones in FS. There are "corrective" timezone.bgl's that you can download, as well as programs like FSTimeKeeper to "get it right".Rhett

Search for "tz30.zip" in the file library.

Flight Sim appears to be tied into local UK time as UTC rather than real UTC time.Flight Sim also has issues with the date line and has real issues keeping the clock on time over the course of a long flight.You also have the issue of the airline schedules "fudge" time. A 13 hour flight will be scheduled for 14 hours.A NAT flight west bound will be scheduled for 2 hours longer than the same route east bound. Passengers don't really mind arriving a bit early, but dislike arriving late.The TimeZones update is a fantastic addition to your FS world. You have to remember to run the DSTorSDT.exe each month to update the files with the current month.I consider TZ to be among the most critical items for FS - thanks Dennis Thompson !!!!!However - Flight Sim simply keeps time differently than the system clock - which ain't no great time keeper either. There are a LOT of things which can cause the FS clock to pause - and accelerated rate flying is a biggie. The number of time zones crossed and the date line are also sources of timing errors.The only thing I've found which will keep the FS clock in sync with the world is FS Real Time.The download is realtime_186911.zip in the Avsim library.This is a shareware/ payware product. But you can test it and see if it works for you. The cost is $15 US. FSUIPC is required. Do read the full information before using the software - http://www.3dsoftworks.net/storefront/fsrealtime/default.aspBut if keeping a somewhat realistic clock is what you want - that's the only product I know of which will do so.TimeZones 3.0 alone will help tremendously - but FS loses time and an hour or two over a 13 hour flight would not be uncommon even with Dennis' TZ files.

yes, FS is a bit slow. But that's understandable. The timer that keeps the internal clock for FS updated will not be a very high priority thread, so it's quite conceivable that it will from time to time miss a beat so to speak.As your systems gets more loaded with addons (and thus has to work harder) the time available for low priority threads gets less quicker than the time available for high priority threads like updating the screen and calculating flight dynamics, so the rate of time loss increases.A loss of hours on a 13 hour flight is however extreme. I usually see a loss of no more than several minutes on a transatlantic hop.

Do these time programs work if you're using time compression? That's why I haven't got one. Also fsuipc has a check box for sync the time. But I have that unchecked. On long flights I use 4x or 8x. But I don't seem to have problems crossing the international date line going west to east.

The TimeZones 3.0 is a series of scenery files which just change the borders of various time zones. And add a lot of new time zones - especially the 1/2 hour, 1/4 hour and 3/4 hour off time zones which do not exist in the default FS.Speeded up clock has no impact on these.FS Real Time does NOT like accelerated simulator rates - check the support section on the web site.Jeron,I've noticed the timing errors appear to be larger on the Pacific / International Date Line than in the Atlantic.But in our DC-6/7 flights in February, I really didn't notice any issues - and those were 6-10 hours. But on that flight, I had minimized addons and things which might stress FS.I also did not use FS RealTime because the way it resets the time will invalidate RTW Duenna.

Actually, Real Time works just fine with acceleration. The current version will suspend time adjustments until you slow down again. It will then maintain whatever time disparity (sim to real) that exists when you go back to 1:1. You can also set a certain time disparity if you want to, and have RT keep you exactly in sync, "out of sync".Neat utlity.* Orest

interesting. Might be something to do with the international date line that messes up time calculations in the area with high speed aircraft.I've had trouble there flying the PSS777 and 747 in FS2002 but attributed it to the addon (there were some navigational anomalies).But flying the F1 C421 around the world I've never had trouble, and that too is a slower aircraft.So if the time dilation effect is larger (as Einstein predicted, though not as severe as FS may have it) when flying faster it's indeed likely that the CPU load ballancing in favour of flight dynamics and graphics generation is indeed happening.

Aircraft complexity and your own system can have a huge impact on this.The default Cessna for example will actually keep time quite well, but with a more complex panel, expect the clock to lose anything between 1 to 10 seconds per minute.

Incidentally Reggie and others,I heard from the FSX team (mike/tdrag) that the time zone stuff in the SDK will be documented much better in FSX...and that these sorts of modifications (like TZ30.zip) will be easier. Apparently the simplified time zones will still be there, so there will be a need to mod them I'm sure. Newfoundland time comes to mind...Anyway good thread...Rhett

Here is an interesting note from the TZ30.zip readme:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~```Additional note, for users of FS Real Time: If you're loading a flight (a situation) with a date from April 4th to October 31st (see Flags, above), the simulator will assume that you're in Daylight Savings Time (DST), if your aircraft is in an area that observes it. If you're using FS Real Time, it will show a bias of one hour more than what is expected, even after FS Real Time changes the date outside the months specified above.If you have AutoUpdate turned on, FS Real Time will readjust the date back to the current date, but the time bias will not change until you move the aircraft either by slewing it, or flying it somewhere about 30nm away. You can also reposition the aircraft with the Go To Airport function. If you do one of these, you'll find that DST will turn itself back off in the sim, and the time bias will then be correct.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~```I was noticing exactly this. It is now Standard time, but FS9/FSRealTime was still using DST offets.* Orest