SHIFT+Z

[Wolf0 31]

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

Yup, I can remember being furious at Textron the first time I got in a real Cessna. It was outrageous that they had not put a function in the cockpit to enable me to press shift+z to have all kinds of info appear in the top left of the windscreen in a nice red font; for that matter, there wasn't even a shift key, or a z key in that cockpit anyway, instead they actually expected me to look at the windsock or tune into ATIS or Volmet.

That's as real as it gets. It just sucks if you are aiming for a dirt strip hidden from infrastructure. And we can explore those now. Preferably without 10+ kts tailwind on final.

[Chock 17,769]

6 minutes ago, Wolf0 said:

That's as real as it gets. It just sucks if you are aiming for a dirt strip hidden from infrastructure. And we can explore those now. Preferably without 10+ kts tailwind on final.

In these cases, a dirt strip will have a windsock which gives you wind speed and direction, plus gusts.

If not, you can work out the wind direction and speed from observing a number of things: cloud shadows moving on the landscape, smoke drifting from chimneys, ripples on water, bird movements, trees blowing, ripples on grass blowing across fields, cloud streets, calculating it on your E6B, GPS if you've got it, etc.

This is what you have to do in real life. People wanted 'as real as it gets', well they've got it.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Chock

[fppilot 4,355]

If it is a small field without even AWOS you can pull in the ATIS from a close-by airport that does.  Rarely will it be significantly different except in the case of a FROPA affecting one of the airports before the other.  And conditions like that should be obvious, and in many cases keep you on the ground anyway.

 

[HighBypass 2,339]

Given the graphical fidelity of the new sim, looking at a windsock has become a very real thing to do in the simulator now it seems, and that is a good thing which can only get better IMHO.

I don't think I can have enough beer to cry into without getting alcoholic poisoning when I see MSFS vids and then fire up my FSX:SE  Then again, perhaps I should ignore any of the GA and light sport planes in my virtual hangar so I no longer fly VFR.. 🍻

 

[LHookins 3,102]

3 hours ago, HighBypass said:

Given the graphical fidelity of the new sim, looking at a windsock has become a very real thing to do in the simulator now it seems, and that is a good thing which can only get better IMHO.

We may need to edit a file to get the windsock to animate farther away than 500 meters. 😄 Beyond that it shows the direction, but not the speed or gust conditions.  Good news is, it appears that it can be done.

Hook