Asobo may dumb down wind gusts again - stop them please!

[lwt1971 7,348]

9 hours ago, Marc Collins said:

Overall, I think thermal turbulence is too widespread in the sim, especially at higher altitudes. I suppose it's a good first step, but I am puzzled by why turbulence is not modulated by atmospheric stability. Asobo is receiving weather model data from MeteoBlue with temperature data at all altitudes. They could easily calculate atmospheric stability parameters (thermal lapse rate, Richardson number, etc) and modulate turbulence based on those values. I'm discouraged to see more heavy-handed, simplistic approaches like this statement from the SU10 release notes: "turbulence and drafts have also been reduced by 50% at high altitudes." Why reduce them by 50% everywhere? If the atmosphere is stable, reduce thermals. If it's unstable, keep them, regardless of the altitude.

Asobo are indeed calculating thermal/mechanical/other types of turbulence based on available temperature data, terrain being flown over, time of day, season, etc (for both live and manual weather). In addition to this, simulating turbulence is always going to need some randomness being factored into the calculations. See below for more details on how they do it. Some folks were still complaining about this being too pervasive and wanting a way to configure/control it and to be able to have no thermals/turbulence at all... unlike other aspects of weather, thermals is something that's always going to happen due to a certain set of conditions so what does it really mean in a simulator to give the ability for the user to control it or enable/disable it? 

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/release-release-notes-1-27-21-0-sim-update-10/543606
"Per feedback, turbulence & drafts have been reduced by 90% at 0kts wind speed and 50% at 1kts wind speed (no change above 3kts wind speed). turbulence and drafts have also been reduced by 50% at high altitudes"

So I guess this is something of a compromise so for those who do want to, they can control turbulence/thermals/drafts via manual weather by setting wind speeds to 0, <=3, or >3 knots. Re: the "reduced by 50% at high altitudes", not sure what specific altitude range they're talking about here, but I assume due to the fact that turbulence is lower at high altitudes (i.e. as turbulent air moves higher the effect is more distributed over a larger area), and their initial thermals/turbulence modelling might've been too much, so they're reducing it?

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/live-dev-q-a-august-18th-2022/544264

Seb - Oh, that’s yeah, so that’s more for what we could call large-scale information. So that data is – I don’t know what resolution it is, maybe 100 meters or something [Martial - on the layer]. But so one thing that is important is that we get from, whether it’s METAR or Meteoblue, we only get horizontal wind: It’s always horizontal, it’s flat, it doesn’t do any vertical components. So all the vertical components of the wind are computed in real time in our, sort of, thermal updrafts, turbulence simulator, and that thing basically starts with whatever comes from the wind system METAR injected into Meteoblue. And it’s going to look at both the terrain. For example, is there a hill? Like, is it going uphill, downhill? Is there a mountain up front? It’s going to look at sunlight, actual sunlight coming, so depending on the sun position, if there’s clouds, which are hiding the sun, or if you’re on a slope, mountain slope, whatever the angle.

Seb - It’s also gonna compute atmosphere thickness, so it’s going to compute the actual watts of sunlight reaching the ground. So if you’re at the top of Mont Blanc, clear sky, it’s gonna be, I think, 1300 watts or something. And the more you go down, the more there’s clouds, or at night, it goes down to zero. Then it takes the ground type, if there’s forest, trees, grass, the color, albedo, what type of terrain it is, if it’s water, and then it sort of starts with the ground air temperature, which we get from METAR or Meteoblue, and it computes the ground surface temperature, which has been heated up or not. And that then sort of, if the ground is extremely hot, compared to the air, I don’t know, let’s say it’s 15° outside air, but the ground is at 60° because it’s in the sun, we will generate more updrafts. So that’s the thermal updrafts.

Seb - And then there is obviously, also, if the wind hits the building, then it gets diverted and does turbulence behind the building. If it hits the range of trees, it’s going to create a bump. So there’s all sorts of systems that basically take the topology shape of the terrain, temperature of the terrain, and compute the terms. And that’s not coming from any data source because this is one foot resolution. It’s super small, because a bump created by a house on final can be very, very small. And no weather system reads this data. And this system creates heat bumps, pressure bumps, because when air is pushing away, it changes pressure a little bit. And I think it changes air temperature so you can get into a bubble of hot air and get an updraft. And that can change the engine performance if it’s 5° out. It’s gonna have all sorts of consequences. And so that’s simulated in real time. It’s not coming from any data source.

Seb - And I showed an example, also, I think earlier already on one Q&A, there is something coming that will allow users to visualize the vertical wind component in the world. So like, assistance, like all the ribbons or all that stuff, there’s going to be an assistance where you can see the vertical wind, so that’s really cool. If you want to use that to go up when a glider or whatever, even if you want to glide on a Cessna, you can do that if there’s not updraft or if you want to just understand why it’s very turbulent. Because if you understand all this, you can understand why more people complain about turbulence in the summer. It’s just there’s more sunlight in our areas and why in winter, it’s very hard to get to any turbulence because the sun is just so low and it doesn’t create many updrafts.

Edited September 26, 2022 by lwt1971

[CaptBillyBob 51]

This short clip is from me flying a c152 after I haven't flown a small plane in years. Had to go around the first attempt because I started flaring at 30 ft. All I'll say is real aircraft are MUCH easier to fly than in MSFS and that includes the airliners. Taxiing much easier too. Perhaps the weathervaning characteristics are a bit overdone? https://youtu.be/LrICt4YjGwE  I picked the worst day to go flying a c152 that's for sure.

Edited September 26, 2022 by CaptBillyBob

[Dillon 2,197]

58 minutes ago, CaptBillyBob said:

This short clip is from me flying a c152 after I haven't flown a small plane in years. Had to go around the first attempt because I started flaring at 30 ft. All I'll say is real aircraft are MUCH easier to fly than in MSFS and that includes the airliners. Taxiing much easier too. Perhaps the weathervaning characteristics are a bit overdone? https://youtu.be/LrICt4YjGwE  I picked the worst day to go flying a c152 that's for sure.

I find what they've done in SU10 spot on...🧐

[CaptBillyBob 51]

19 minutes ago, Dillon said:

I find what they've done in SU10 spot on...🧐

Spot on is a stretch. 

[arbt 9]

Yes CaptBillyBob,  my perception of MSFS flight dynamics pretty much match yours. My time RL flying much more distant than yours,  but my recall of those times is that RL flying was much easier than MSFS flying: Far less attention to elevator trimming seemed required in the air and ground behaviour seemed  much more straight forward.  Had the general ground handling and weathervaning matched that in MSFS I would have been frightened off RL flying after my first lesson. 

[Moron 64]

Okay, THANKFULLY, Asobo will disable wind gusts with an upcoming hotfix this week or next, according to a thread on the official Microsoft Flight Simulator Forum.    This was the right decision until gusts can be implemented realistically at some point in the future.  

[CaptBillyBob 51]

16 minutes ago, arbt said:

Yes CaptBillyBob,  my perception of MSFS flight dynamics pretty much match yours. My time RL flying much more distant than yours,  but my recall of those times is that RL flying was much easier than MSFS flying: Far less attention to elevator trimming seemed required in the air and ground behaviour seemed  much more straight forward.  Had the general ground handling and weathervaning matched that in MSFS I would have been frightened off RL flying after my first lesson. 

I think it's the flight model's reaction to the forces that makes it more difficult. For instance, taking off in a 737 with a 10 crosswind does take opposite rudder to stay on the centerline, but it takes too much overcorrection in the sim to get it right. If you center the rudder for instance, it'll immediately weathervane abruptly. It should be a slower/smoother reaction if that makes sense. Osobo said they 'added' gusts to live weather. I'm curious if they just added gusts everywhere to please the masses? I stated earlier that turbulence seems to be in places you wouldn't expect it and it's not there where you would expect it. Still fun to fly though.

[CaptBillyBob 51]

7 minutes ago, hobart escin said:

Okay, THANKFULLY, Asobo will disable wind gusts with an upcoming hotfix this week or next, according to a thread on the official Microsoft Flight Simulator Forum.    This was the right decision until gusts can be implemented realistically at some point in the future.  

If the METAR shows gusty winds, will it be bumpy like it should or be a smooth ride? 

[Tuskin38 6,468]

27 minutes ago, hobart escin said:

Okay, THANKFULLY, Asobo will disable wind gusts with an upcoming hotfix this week or next, according to a thread on the official Microsoft Flight Simulator Forum.    This was the right decision until gusts can be implemented realistically at some point in the future.  

I hope that isn't true, they're fine they way they are.

[JBDB-MD80 1,473]

6 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

I hope that isn't true, they're fine they way they are.

Don't even bother with his post. He has an agenda and don't even use MSFS as Abrams called him out a few pages ago.

Edited September 26, 2022 by jbdbow1970

[Tuskin38 6,468]

1 minute ago, jbdbow1970 said:

Don't even bother with his post. He has an agenda and don't even use MSFS as Abrams called him out a few pages ago.

I also can't find this post they speak of.

[JBDB-MD80 1,473]

13 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

I also can't find this post they speak of.

He is a "claimed" P3D user with much input in the MSFS forums Lately and not "P3D" that are very critical that's all I have to say.

Edited September 26, 2022 by jbdbow1970

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

6 hours ago, Bdub22 said:

yawn. 

Please elaborate… 

[arbt 9]

Agree BillyBob, I think the flight model is likely responsible for the exaggerated response to off midline wind vectors during takeoff and landing. As previously suggested by many on this forum it seems to be a result of inaccurate inertia representation. I'm not sufficiently informed to comment on the nature of the gusts/turbulence as presented in MSFS, ie whether they are a reasonably true reflection  of wind conditions at any given airfield in real time. However I must say that despite these problems I continue to find MSFS a great improvement on previous flight simulator iterations.  

[suncoastflyer 685]

For those saying flying IRL is easier than in sim. Yes. Absolutely. And it always will be. You will have physical controls with real feedback. You are in the seat. I've always said flying is a piece of cake, it's the laws, and knowledge that is the only hard part about flying. For those good at studying and have good hand-eye, flying is second nature.

Flying on a flat screen sim with a few hundred dollars worth of controls will still not come close to how it feels to fly a real aircraft.