4 minutes ago, noahjpn said:

Thank you so much eslader! Your explanation is fantastic! I think I got it immediately! 

So you suggest to turn the wx+t on during cruise, and tilt one of the two radars forward, and the other one down? 

One real world technique is to adjust the tilt so that you are just seeing ground returns at the top of the ND. Unfortunately this not modelled terribly well in most FS aircraft, though you can experiment with turning off the ground clutter suppression temporarily and playing around with the tilt.

The idea is that that way the radar beam (which is generally very narrow - imagine shining a torch, or a searchlight) is painting the ground at the far edge of the ND and then as you get closer to the aircraft obviously the beam is progressively higher). Ultimately you want to be trying to 'paint' the 'wet' bit of the storm which is going to be at low to mid levels.

You can then use the display on the other side to look a little higher and/or try and gauge the vertical extent of any build-ups you see, as @eslader suggests.

19 minutes ago, noahjpn said:

So you suggest to turn the wx+t on during cruise, and tilt one of the two radars forward, and the other one down? 

Yes, that's what I do. The downward tilting one can show you when things are ugly a little below your flight path, and you can make a pretty good guess as to what the winds are doing at your level even if there's not much precip to bounce your straight-ahead beam off of. If it's big and ugly-red just below your flight path, you can be pretty sure it's not gonna be glass-smooth where you are.

I also make use of pireps on Activesky's map. In real life you can call ATC or your company and ask for pireps from planes flying ahead of you, so while real pilots don't click around in Activesky to get information, they do get the information via a method that's unavailable to us in the sim.

The pireps will give you a heads up that things will get bumpy (or icing, or any other adverse condition) long before your radar will, and that lets you choose a more efficient path to steer around the trouble spot. It doesn't always work, of course, because it requires another simmer who has Active Sky and who is willing to take the time to write out a pirep to have been in the area before you got there, but it actually works more often than I would have guessed before I got AS.

Awesome guys, thanks a lot!

1 hour ago, skelsey said:

One real world technique is to adjust the tilt so that you are just seeing ground returns at the top of the ND. Unfortunately this not modelled terribly well in most FS aircraft, though you can experiment with turning off the ground clutter suppression temporarily and playing around with the tilt.

@skelsey how does the ground show on the ND? And how can I turn off the ground clutter suppression? I only fly the pudgy 737 and 777. 

 

Is there way to turn off the different weather layers in ASN? I think that might be my problem.

Look in the AS options - there are MANY things you can do to modify how the weather is presented including adjusting layers.

 

Vic

4 hours ago, noahjpn said:

Awesome guys, thanks a lot!

@skelsey how does the ground show on the ND? And how can I turn off the ground clutter suppression? I only fly the pudgy 737 and 777. 

 

The ground will show solid returns - in reality the intensity will depend on the type of surface/terrain etc (so mountains may show as red returns etc and you would be able to make out ground features - there is a (probably not entirely apocryphal) story I recall about an FO taking avoiding action on the island of Jersey one night on the way back to the UK.

Unfortunately I have neither the NGX nor the 777 so I can't speak with authority on those types. However, in the sim, as I recall in the PMDG 747 there is a "GC" button which controls the ground clutter suppression, and I am fairly sure that the ground returns appear as a (very distinctive) solid green arc when the radar is tilted appropriately though I hope I'm not misremembering and transposing that memory from another addon!

For what it's worth, the only addon I've ever flown which makes a reasonably realistic effort at terrain returns is the Aerosoft Airbus!

Ok, thanks a lot guys!!