Weather Access Upate 10

[alpha117 73]

Just in case I've missed something!

With the next MSFS update, my understanding is that ASOBO with allow limited 'read' only access to the weather SDK. This is to allow 3rd parties to activate their aircraft weather radar and that is it.  So, that is access to precipitation data around the aircraft only and no other useable data for 3rd parties?

Thanks All 

[KL Oo 700]

23 minutes ago, alpha117 said:

Just in case I've missed something!

With the next MSFS update, my understanding is that ASOBO with allow limited 'read' only access to the weather SDK. This is to allow 3rd parties to activate their aircraft weather radar and that is it.  So, that is access to precipitation data around the aircraft only and no other useable data for 3rd parties?

Thanks All 

Hi Clive,

I could have sworn they were also allowing wind direction and speed access as well. Can't remember where exactly/which of the million Dev Updates/Twitches/Q&A's I read that, but that was my recollection. My understanding was that this wind data was required for various aircraft FMCs,in particular VNAC calculations.

This is why I mentioned it in the other FS Hud thread...

Regards,

 

[alpha117 73]

Hi Kael, 

Yea, there's so much I get confused(my age!) of what is wehere and who wrote/quoted what!

I believe PMDG are currently using the REX weather API for their FMC calulations.

Let's see what amyone else has to add

 

Thanks

 

[jcomm 5,938]

Good question.

I believe wind data as well as OAT ( localy ) are already available, otherwise it wouldn't have been possible to display wind vector on various instruments, or windshear allerts as well as OAT / SAT ...

Updraft / Downdraft data would be great as well.

Unless the OP is referring to access to such data for a given volume of space / time. 

Given that MFS sources it's data from Meteoblue it's easy to find out all of that data f you have access to GRIB / GRIB2 data. It shouldn't be that far from what is being used in MFS with the exception of local effects calculated by the sim like wind near mountainous areas and the new "thermodynamic" thermal calculations that ASOBO is trying to implement.

Sorry for hijacking your thread, but I would like to take the chance to refer to what was mentioned in one of the Q&As regarding soaring weather.

Appart from the already available ( and in need of fine tuning ) "mountain winds", ASOBO added starting SU9 a new sort of rising air computation, a kind of convection, using satellite data processing on the kind of terrain / albedo / Sun position in the horizon / surface temperature and probably also cloud coverage.

Having access to this data in write mode would be great too. Read mode is more or less useless in this case unless you're willing to check how good ASOBO's calculations are.

Some form of controlling the thermal cycles and the disruption caused by wind and shear would be useful too.

Ideally any application dedicated to soaring weather should base it's calculations / injected weather variables, in Tephigram / Skew-T data for a grid of points. That would give the programmers a sound base to "paint" the weather over areas where thermal activity, as well as other phenomena are worth the use for soaring simulation. In a more general form, it would shape up as some sort of "boundary layer data package" 🙂

I believe a Soaring tittle will be comming in the future. At least I read somwhere they were working with a team of devs that inluded soaring pilots ( ? )

Edited June 12, 2022 by jcomm

[KL Oo 700]

My understanding, and I could very well be wrong, was that wind at the users/aircrafts current point could be read, but third party apps couldn't access wind/wx data at other locations. I.e my aircraft can report whats present right here and now, but not what is happening at my destination 40 miles away. This I think is the issue the FS Hud developers are saying hey have and why they can't have AI responding to WX conditions at an arrival airport.

Although on second thoughts if WX data at the right here/now point are available, then surely they could extract that for departures.....

 

[ailchim 206]

And also it makes your own approach planning difficult if you don't know which way the wind's blowing at your destination...  That's not flight simulation is it?

[vcarlo 529]

Confusing ? YES -- How is this different from the radar returns I see every flight on the G3000 map ?

[JRBarrett 3,070]

2 hours ago, ailchim said:

And also it makes your own approach planning difficult if you don't know which way the wind's blowing at your destination...  That's not flight simulation is it?

MSFS has been using current METAR to set airport surface winds in Live Weather since December of 2020, and it has been my experience that the winds on approach match the latest METAR probably 98 percent of the time. Current METAR reports are available from dozens of online web sites and apps. (I personally use Foreflight).

I almost every case, the winds at the airport are exactly what the Foreflight METAR says they will be. For that reason, there is no reason for MSFS itself to have the ability to extract or report the winds for a distant airport.

Wind at the aircraft’s current position is contained in standard simconnect variables that have always been available since the initial release of MSFS almost two years ago.

[espent 1,397]

In the latest dev update from last week it seems like they have changed the wording a bit. Now it specifically says that you can get the weather “around your aircraft”. Sound like a smaller scope than was mentioned earlier. 
 

I guess it is limited how much data all users can pull from MeteoBlue.