34 minutes ago, hobart escin said:

Bottom Line:  The new surface wind gust feature is borked, period.   MSFS2020 will basically always add at least a 10 kt wind gust at every airport in the sim during usage of live weather, even if winds are reported calm in the current Metar.    To repeat - the surface wind ALWAYS gusts at every airport no matter what.   There is no longer any such thing as calm winds at the surface in MSFS2020 anymore with the release of SU10. 

Coupled with the very unrealistic ground friction in MFS2020, tracking the centerline during takeoff or landing is a thing of the past with the new perpetual wind gusts.   Yay.   Perhaps Asobo can make S shaped runways in future updates that will facilitate centerline tracking?   

I know what you're saying and I have been frustrated too...

I worked in a control tower for over a decade and the ATIS was very accurate.  Sure the winds varied a little off of the ATIS (because it's an averaged snapshot at the time of the observation) but they were close.  If the windsock showed 25010KT - 23015KT the atis might read 24012KT for the hourly observation.  Sometimes the weather service amended it slightly and sometimes we amended it slightly (to maintain accuracy).  So in my experienced opinion, towered/controlled airports in the sim should have very identical conditions based on the metar.  For my sim experience, it's been better over the last few SU's.  But it's still occasionally wildly off from real metars (USA flying on my end).  If the wind is gusting it should be stated on the ATIS.  And if the change in wind speed and/or direction is so vigorous a SPECI will be generated and that will become the new METAR string.... something like 24012G18KT.  It would be rare, at a towered airport, to have large wind gusts and not have it on the ATIS. 

At uncontrolled airports, where no human will manage the broadcast, it is entirely possible that the wind and weather could change abruptly from the hourly metar.  However if MSFS is truly reading and rendering forecasted conditions it should easily be able to detect a cold/warm/occluded front etc, read all the surrounding metars and populate the sim with accurate conditions.  

To me it would be more realistic for the sim to just read the metar string and render those conditions at that airport (and roughly a 5-10 mile radius from it).  And somehow blend in the real forecast with the metar stations.  I'm not a coder so maybe this is the dilemma Asobo is running into.  Active Sky did a really nice job of this in P3D....we just didn't have the fairly nice volumetric clouds we now have in MSFS.

So I'm a little tired of people ridiculing METAR - I literally looked at metars every hour (and minutes in between), and compared them with outside conditions for almost 15 years.  They are quite accurate especially at towered airports, and they paint a pretty good picture even at uncontrolled airports unless a storm coming through.  I can't stress enough how many times I've had pilots report the cloud bases/conditions "per the atis."  And why in the heck don't we have accurate visibility - and why is it not a user-selectable variable in custom weather?  

This is a flight sim!  Flight models and weather...  they should be of the utmost priority....then add in all the fancy pants features....

One more point that I feel is important.  Forecasts are just that - they're based on models and they're not always accurate.  They're generally fairly close but not always.  METARs are accurate.  They are literally what's happening at the airport.  And at towered airports they're updated every 5 minutes if the conditions are changing so rapidly.

The sim has made progress for sure!  But there is more to be made!

Edited September 23, 20223 yr by ryanbatc

1 hour ago, hobart escin said:

will basically always add at least a 10 kt wind gust at every airport in the sim during usage of live weather, even if winds are reported calm in the current Metar

That’s not true at all, at least in my experience with SU10

6 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

I know what you're saying and I have been frustrated too...

I worked in a control tower for over a decade and the ATIS was very accurate.  Sure the winds varied a little off of the ATIS (because it's an averaged snapshot at the time of the observation) but they were close.  If the windsock showed 25010KT - 23015KT the atis might read 24012KT for the hourly observation.  Sometimes the weather service amended it slightly and sometimes we amended it slightly (to maintain accuracy).  So in my experienced opinion, towered/controlled airports in the sim should have very identical conditions based on the metar.  For my sim experience, it's been better over the last few SU's.  But it's still occasionally wildly off from real metars (USA flying on my end).  If the wind is gusting it should be stated on the ATIS.  And if the change in wind speed and/or direction is so vigorous a SPECI will be generated and that will become the new METAR string.... something like 24012G18KT.  It would be rare, at a towered airport, to have large wind gusts and not have it on the ATIS. 

At uncontrolled airports, where no human will manage the broadcast, it is entirely possible that the wind and weather could change abruptly from the hourly metar.  However if MSFS is truly reading and rendering forecasted conditions it should easily be able to detect a cold/warm/occluded front etc, read all the surrounding metars and populate the sim with accurate conditions.  

To me it would be more realistic for the sim to just read the metar string and render those conditions at that airport (and roughly a 5-10 mile radius from it).  And somehow blend in the real forecast with the metar stations.  I'm not a coder so maybe this is the dilemma Asobo is running into.  Active Sky did a really nice job of this in P3D....we just didn't have the fairly nice volumetric clouds we now have in MSFS.

So I'm a little tired of people ridiculing METAR - I literally looked at metars every hour (and minutes in between), and compared them with outside conditions for almost 15 years.  They are quite accurate especially at towered airports, and they paint a pretty good picture even at uncontrolled airports unless a storm coming through.  I can't stress enough how many times I've had pilots report the cloud bases/conditions "per the atis."  And why in the heck don't we have accurate visibility - and why is it not a user-selectable variable in custom weather?  

This is a flight sim!  Flight models and weather...  they should be of the utmost priority....then add in all the fancy pants features....

One more point that I feel is important.  Forecasts are just that - they're based on models and they're not always accurate.  They're generally fairly close but not always.  METARs are accurate.  They are literally what's happening at the airport.  And at towered airports they're updated every 5 minutes if the conditions are changing so rapidly.

The sim has made progress for sure!  But there is more to be made!

Oh man, just this.   And I readily concur that Activesky for P3D is the only realistic weather generator ever made for any Microsoft/P3D simulator iteration.   If MSFS2020 would just stick to the Metars and forego trying to wildly interpolate data streams coming off Meteo Blue, along with Asobo's own attempt at what is essentially A.I. weather based on parameters other than actual weather observations. 

Activesky had quite a long gestation through different simulator versions over the years before reaching it's modern form, but the programmers finally nailed Metar-induced real-world weather conditions at airports.   If the Metar indicates gusting conditions, that's what Activesky gives you; it didn't make up things on it's own.   Asobo's biggest problem is that of programmers lacking real-world aviation experience and making conjectures as to how certain things should work instead of relying on first person experience.   In other words, some things look good on paper but not as a digital render.  

I love MSFS2020's scenery engine but wow, it's getting so hard not to revert back to P3D for serious simming.   I mean, even if for the weather alone.