Look at VATSIM go!

[Smoky 7]

The US is lit up but in the rest off the world it’s “solo mio”. I tried European countries, African and Asian countries. Didn’t see s#*t. No models either. Tonight I’m going to try IVAO. Traffic should be more global outthere with accurate modelmatching but can’t confirm that yet.

[SnakeP 39]

How some people here are able to enjoy VATSIM (or IVAO) in MSFS is beyond me! You are supposed to use real-time (or "live") weather there, otherwise it simply doesn't make sense to use these networks. You'll get wrong runway assignments from the controllers and they'll face a nightmare trying to separate you from other pilots if the winds are not correct (i.e. constantly 225/3). Especially the US is a mess.

The official forum is full of reports about that issue (basically since the early Alpha stage), and only now the problem made it to the "known issue" list.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/why-has-the-broken-225-03-wind-not-even-been-acknowledged-as-an-issue-extremely-concerning/208170

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/this-is-the-225-03-wind-thread/240625

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/live-weather-error/218383

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/wind-live-weather-still-broken/194040

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/live-weather-dont-seems-to-be-accurate/196205

...

And yes, in Europe it's working in many places quite accurately, but even there I'm getting discrepancies for parameters like pressure and temperatures, which are not within the limits...

Edited September 3, 2020 by SnakeP

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

Wind calm is defined by wind less than 5 knots (so 4 or less), and all our aircraft are able to land with 3 knot tailwind. So the wind bug is not going to affect vatsim whatsoever. Neither is the baro setting (that it differs from vatsim). It's annoying, I'll give you that, but it doesnt make any grey hairs.

I don't fly on vatsim for the weather, dude 🙂 Sure, having the same weather would be nice, but actually you can also use vatsim for atc procedures, and going through the whole planning to parking thing while also hearing people talk in a somewhat semi-professional fashion. It makes for an enjoyable experience.

[tweekz 2,165]

50 minutes ago, SnakeP said:

f the winds are not correct (i.e. constantly 225/3). Especially the US is a mess..

Only speaking for myself, but I never had any issues with live weather, so it doesn't seem to be a global problem.

[SnakeP 39]

17 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

Wind calm is defined by wind less than 5 knots (so 4 or less), and all our aircraft are able to land with 3 knot tailwind.

Neither is the baro setting (that it differs from vatsim). It's annoying, I'll give you that, but it doesnt make any grey hairs.

I don't fly on vatsim for the weather, dude 🙂 Sure, having the same weather would be nice, but actually you can also use vatsim for atc procedures, and going through the whole planning to parking thing while also hearing people talk in a somewhat semi-professional fashion. It makes for an enjoyable experience.

You are kidding me, aren't you?! Well, at least I hope you do! Just one(!) very simple example for you, "Dude" 😉: If there's wind 225/3 at FL360 for a MSFS pilot and there're two planes behind you (one on P3D, the other on XP) on the same airway and the same altitude (FL360), the controller will most likely assign a certain speed to the others, so that they won't bump into you. Since they're both on live weather, they both have a 89 kts tailwind--what's going to happen in this case...?

Quote

So the wind bug is not going to affect vatsim whatsoever.

No, but it will, quite significantly even.

Edited September 3, 2020 by SnakeP

[SnakeP 39]

5 minutes ago, tweekz said:

Only speaking for myself, but I never had any issues with live weather, so it doesn't seem to be a global problem.

Just quoting myself here, not to be put into a corner like "this guy is whining about the weather not working anywhere in the world".

57 minutes ago, SnakeP said:

[...]

And yes, in Europe it's working in many places quite accurately, but even there I'm getting discrepancies for parameters like pressure and temperatures, which are not within the limits...

If you read the posts by people in the official forum, you'd see that even in Europe it doesn't work accurately the whole time with the wind changing abruptly from accurate values to 225/3 mid flight.

[SnakeP 39]

27 minutes ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

I don't fly on vatsim for the weather, dude 🙂 Sure, having the same weather would be nice, but actually you can also use vatsim for atc procedures, and going through the whole planning to parking thing while also hearing people talk in a somewhat semi-professional fashion. It makes for an enjoyable experience.

Just went through your post again and I have another question for you: How do you "plan" a flight without knowing what the weather will be like in the sim? How do you know, for instance, how much fuel to put into your plane?

Bottom line (at least for me): There needs to be a common ground regarding weather conditions if you want to fly online and together with pilots using other simulators--and that's real-time (or live) weather. Period. And don't forget, they advertised their "Live Weather" engine (or implementation, respectively), I'm only trying to hold them accountable for what they advertised very clearly and very loudly. If they only wanted to deliver "Weather", then fair enough, I would be quiet. But they shouldn't have advertised anything else in this case.

Edited September 3, 2020 by SnakeP

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

Well, I didn't really mean that the bugs and shortcomings of MSF will not affect vatsim whatsoever. Of course it will, but the atc together with the pilots will handle it. Yesterday, ie, I was given an approach for a runway I had planned for, but I only had 1 of the star variations for that approach, and they gave me the one I didn't have. So I simply informed them that I was unable to fly that approach, also told them about MSF not having that particular star in its nav repository, and they vectored me around just fine 🙂  I think many of them like vectoring anyway as it's more active than assigning sids and stars. Most of the time I will be able to do the sids and stars, but sometimes no, and the local atc will develop knowhow about what to look out for with msf. 

When it comes to weather planning, yeah with the winds really being hit or miss its difficult. I do fly more by the seat of my pants these days, and might end up having to do a refuel stop midflight on longer hauls. I guess it's a little bit old school meets new school this. 

 

[Deleted 250]

Any news for Vatsim now? Especially modelmatching (liveries) and weather?

Edited January 9, 2021 by Deleted

[jrw4 624]

The arrival of MSFS did not introduce new weather challenges in VATSIM. It has always been true that each pilot participant was flying in a unique weather environment because of the numerous weather engines that were in use. If memory serves correctly, P3D doesn't even provide its own real world weather option; one needs to purchase that capability separately. And now you have the different simulator/weather engine environments, no two of which are guaranteed to agree with one another or with the VATSIM reported weather, depending on when weather updates propagate through the various weather servers and exactly when your desktop simulator decides to download its updates from those servers.

If for some reason you feel that weather discrepancies would result in departure or landing situations that exceed the capability of the aircraft or pilot. ATC will work you into the flow for an alternate runway, although it might take a little time. Always take extra fuel for an online flight, just for this reason. Also, if you use Simbrief, for example, to plan flights expect that your in-flight upper level winds may deviate significantly from what has been planned. This is just like in the real world, where upper level wind predictions can be spot on, or dead wrong, but you never know which in advance. 

Finally, there already exists payware and freeware METAR based weather injection software for MSFS. I use the former and it seems to work fine. 

Most of all, have fun. 

 

[ADamiani 470]

On 9/3/2020 at 5:54 AM, pvupilot said:

Glad you’re still flying! I got kicked to the curb right as I finally made it to qualify for my first gig... haven’t flown in months. So having something as realistic as MSFS has helped (and also caused pain ha...). But I agree, it’s more of a sim than a game, people just don’t realize that. 

I beg to differ. I find MSFS2020 aesthetically wonderful (except for coastlines, watermasks, sunk ships, flying cars, solid bridges, pixellated clouds, crazy elevation maps, spikes, rounded mountains), very entertaining when it works fine, I avoid the most annoying bugs and I don't ask too much from my rig.

That said, to me it is not a sim. When I want to experience something that behaves like a sim I go to Aerowinx PSX: a fine simulation of the 747 400.

And yes, I have a pretty good experience with actual airlines simulators (mainly md80 and some Boeing).

Just my opinion of course. And please, please don't label those who don't share your convictions as "naysayers". Tnx.

Andrea

[MaVe64 414]

7 hours ago, Deleted said:

Any news for Vatsim now? Especially modelmatching (liveries) and weather?

Yes, AIG killed FLAi, so no AI planes with liveries for Vatsim anymore.

http://flai.bvartcc.com/

Edited January 9, 2021 by MaVe64

[Tom Wright 438]

I tried Vatsim for the first time the other day. Gosh what an experience! As a complete newbie diving in at the deep end it was pretty stressful, but definitely adds a whole new layer of immersion I've never experienced in Flight Simulator before.

I had to use the FBW Mod for the A320, as I couldn't get the radios to tune properly in the default one. Also, the FMGC still has some annoying quirks which make adhering to the SID and STAR quite difficult at times. It will be nice when we have some official models and liveries, as I was just seeing default aircraft representing other players. But overall it was an incredibly immersive experience. I will try it again once I've psyched myself up enough, and maybe when the aircraft has matured a bit so that the NAV isn't such a handful.

[vcarlo 529]

18 minutes ago, Tom Wright said:

I also now realise the importance of having all the charts including the taxiway and gate plans of the departure and arrival airports readily to hand, as finding your way is one of the most difficult things when flying online!

Yes, my savior for this is running NAVIGRAPH CHARTS on a networked PC.  Kinda cheatin' but it sure helps !