I think what Greazer may be going on about in his layman and a bit trollish way is the way that MSFS "constantly rocks and sways" the aircraft. A lot of folks that have never gotten closer to a cockpit than seat 33F believe that this is a sign of "really flying" 😉

It is a fact that air can be absolutely smooth and motionless and when flying through that, the airplane literally does not pitch, roll, or bank at all. Often found when there is little wind and no thermal activity (best time: early mornings).

Compounding this misinterpretation is the fact that X-Plane´s weather system requires a certain level of cognitive ability together with a basic level of meteorological knowledge...even if using the "gamer friendly" "real weather" setting. If you absolutely want to (to uphold that sense of "flying 😉") - you can still change all aspects of the downloaded weather in the menus - and introduce some random turbulence.

The one aspect where MSFS seems to be ahead is modeling the effect of the terrain feature on the wind - we have seen some footage in the preview videos about MSFS´ capability in calculating flow and turbulent conditions around mountains and valleys and such... stuff that would make any real meteorologist envious. Reports on the forums about these effects range from "I don´t think they implemented this yet" to "yes, I could feel it back then after release" - so I am not sure what the status on that is.

X-Plane allegedly models ridge lift (haven´t tried it myself).

Cheers, Jan

PS: Oh, and thanks for getting the ground model improved, Greazer. The whole community has been on Austin´s case for years, but you finally managed to convince him - expert to expert. Kudos!

Edited June 14, 20214 yr by Janov

14 minutes ago, Janov said:

I think what Greazer may be going on about in his layman and a bit trollish way is the way that MSFS "constantly rocks and sways" the aircraft.

Impossible.  There is no way Greazer will try to bring in MSFS, in any way shape or form.  I refuse to believe this.

😜

15 minutes ago, Janov said:

X-Plane allegedly models ridge lift (haven´t tried it myself).

I've tried it in gliders of previous X-Plane versions, and I remember being amazed by it, as I was completely clueless as to how glider pilots were able to stay up for hours.  And it did work.  I remember the altitude gain when flying over a mountain range.  It also has thermals that help with lift.

Wind modelling in any of the simulators I have tried so far is far from perfect / complete, but still very acceptable in X-Plane and even in P3D /  FSX with a good weather injector.

MFS is still buggy and lacking features. They announced an interesting model of wind, impacted by orography but also convection, but the result so far ( by the last version I tried around 4 months ago ) was not that good at all, particularly it's effects on ground operations, which caused ASOBO to "trick it" by nilling the axial component at lower ground speeds. It's also probably due to flight model quirks, but together they make MFS leave a LOT to be desired regarding the modelling of wind effects...

XP12 could surely add nice features regarding the modelling of thermals in a more complex way than the one presently used ( but MFS doesn't model it at all, at least acceptably... ) and in fine tunning the way XP models trubulence ( again in MFS turbulence modelling is even worst than in XP, although they offer that "fancy" graphic for  very poorly shaping your shear and turb... ).

All in all, whatever XP12 can improve in terms of weather will surely be welcomed, but it is already acceptable, specially for procedural trainning.

Regarding the theme of Austin's video, I wonder if the last versions of XP11 already improved ice accretion and it's impact on GW ( ? ). In the past the algorithm being used was not very good, but I never tested it in the latest versions of XP11 I tried. I am sure Austin will look at it too specially after watching the video !

It's in the good way, and since he will integrate the same feeds used for his professional aviation tool - yes, LR / Austin also produce this sort of professional tools, very useful in RL flying ! - it can only get better than what it presently is.

@Greazer: Hey, stop looking just at the a$$ and bo%bs of the sims... Some gals are so word not allowed pretty, but so void of content ( btw, yes, all men are void of "relation-oriented" content until late 50s... if not forever, just in case we have a woman at the forum, and I actually fit this "man"  model too... )

Edited June 14, 20214 yr by jcomm

What I'm guessing Greazer was getting at was the ability of MSFS to model wind following terrain and blowing around buildings.  To him, that's all the realism he needs.  Along with a little bit of unrealistic buffeting or unrealistic smoothing.  

From what I know, X-Plane does have a wind model that does follow terrain.  As for wind blowing around buildings...why??  Why would anyone want to experience wind around buildings??  Who flies that low?  I go back to my usual answer to feature requests like that.  It's a waste of CPU power, and I would rather see resources allocated somewhere else, where it's important/needed.

Also, a little gift for you, @jcomm

https://www.thresholdx.net/news/amxavi

Edited June 14, 20214 yr by GoranM

24 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Why would anyone want to experience wind around buildings??

Wellllll - here is one person 🙂

I like to fly helicopters, and the special flows of air around buildings is very important when landing on one 😉

And another use I could see for that is the very special effects you have on certain airports...that are even famous for it, like landing 27R at EGLL with a southerly wind. There are huge BA maintenance hangars south of the threshold and even if the wind is fairly smooth on approach, you do get a good hammering as you get into the wakes of those.

Regarding thermals - I am with Jcomm in that I would love to see better "plausibility" of thermals, i.e. dependent on terrain features (built-up areas, dark asphalt, cool forests, lakes and sea, ...), sun intensity, stable/unstable thermal gradients, etc. 

I think with a little effort this could be improved a lot.

Cheers, Jan

 

Edited June 14, 20214 yr by Janov

So, selected buildings. Obviously implementing this at every building on a global scale would be a little much. But sure, I see your point. 

Mind you, flying into YSSY few months ago on east west runway, Sydney was having one of its blustery days, YSSY being on Botany bay, gets the winds pretty much straight off the ocean, trying to land the SAAB340 had a heck of a time, winds where gusting even in the sim, wasnt unexpected its the only runway in real life I have ever being in a go around, as for cloud turbulence, in summer with storm around doesnt surprise me but just because the rare clouds dont always get bumps when flying through them.

This is  a year back , when jozeh @jcomm was teaching me Wx stuff , tried to check the wind effect over terrain , took out the R22 and went flying near mountains , the wind from what I remember was blowing from the east to the west and my heading was north , when nearing any mountain (not over it ) the R22 used to get some kinda deflection from the west.  

 But have never noticed anything near buildings or while landing on a building helipad. Maybe it's modeled but i can't be sure.   

For helicopters wind effect around buildings is really needed.

I guess wind effect due to man-made structures, or even at a larger scale - the Planetary Boundary Layer - is complex... very complex [ search for NOAA / NCEP OFFICE NOTE 75 for a good example, if you like physics and math 😇 ], to properly model even given nowadays processing power for desktop rigs...

Well, but so is CFD, and some flight modelling approaches can still do an acceptable job under the normal flight envelope, so, maybe some subtleties could actually be modeled ( ? )

I am more in favour of probably good weather parameters being made available so that plugins could be developed for specific trainning scenarios, instead of going into a calculation by default in the sim weather model, or maybe this could be an option when you run the simulator...

Edited June 14, 20214 yr by jcomm

In order to get realistic terrain wind effects Meyers would need to climb  mountains and hills with his wind-o-meter videoing at the same time and I can't see him doing that.

43 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

In order to get realistic terrain wind effects Meyers would need to climb  mountains and hills with his wind-o-meter videoing at the same time and I can't see him doing that.

Thats how YOU would do it.  

It is interesting to see how some swear by XP's wind modeling/physics as being spot_on. That is just quite imposible if you ask me, maybe close but never not spot_on. How can a human mind be able to simulate "spot_on" and then code it into a box something that mother nature with all its complexity does so graciously, even Albert Einstein in all his glory was mind/intelligence limited. Oh well, we can only hope one day.

4 hours ago, CarlosF said:

It is interesting to see how some swear by XP's wind modeling/physics as being spot_on.

Just to clarify, I don't think anyone said X-Planes wind modelling and physics is "spot on".  

Speaking for myself, I mentioned a level of accuracy, which I think is up there above what is available.  But I never said it was 100% accurate.

4 hours ago, CarlosF said:

Oh well, we can only hope one day.

I doubt it will ever happen, but it can always be improved.

 

6 hours ago, CarlosF said:

It is interesting to see how some swear by XP's wind modeling/physics as being spot_on. That is just quite imposible if you ask me, 

Perfect statement.

9 minutes ago, Greazer said:

Perfect statement.

Do you even read all relevant forum posts?  Or do you just select what's relevant to your agenda?  Absolutely no one claimed X-Planes physics are "spot on".  Not even Austin, himself.

 

 

Edited June 16, 20214 yr by GoranM